Authors: Ben Hopkin
Tags: #General Fiction
* * *
Mala was standing next to Darc, trying to catch her breath, when the bald detective darted off in the direction of the fire. Even the warning from Trey hadn’t prepared her for Darc to do this.
He was running directly into the forest, the red glare from the fire rimming his darkened profile in hellish light. And now Mala was faced with a choice. Should she follow after him into the inferno, or wait until it was all finished and try to pick up the pieces left over?
Before she even registered she was making a decision, it was made. She was sprinting through the undergrowth, trying to keep pace with a man who from all appearances trained for marathons. At least she was wearing flats today. Trey was always complaining about Darc’s speed; now Mala understood why.
And speaking of Trey, there he was, coming up alongside her. “Couldn’t let you two get all the glory and stuff,” he panted. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here. She couldn’t say she blamed him.
“What’s he doing?”
“Who the hell knows?” Trey replied in between breaths. “It’s Darc. He doesn’t always take time to stop and give me a rundown.”
They darted around a grouping of trees, and Mala watched as the fire spread to a nearby deciduous, which burst into a whirling mass of flame. Darc skirted the worst of the flame in that direction. He seemed to be looking for a way through the encroaching blaze lit by that burning white line.
Fortunately for all of them, this part of the forest was almost to the climax stage of succession, meaning that there was less undergrowth in between the massive trees surrounding them. Darc was able to take a path through an area where the fire wasn’t blocking their way, although the air around them was heated to a point that it felt uncomfortable to breathe. He stopped for a moment, gazing into the encroaching darkness ahead of them.
“Does he even realize we’re here?” Mala shouted at Trey over the roar of the flames.
“I never know what he knows or doesn’t know. I hope so, though.”
“Why?”
Trey gulped in a breath before answering, choking from the smoke. “Because if he doesn’t, we might as well be dead.”
Mala had experienced enough of Darc’s single-mindedness to know that he would stop at very little to solve a case. But lately that seemed to have been tempered by his growing relationship with Janey. And, to be honest, with her.
But if he didn’t understand that they were following, it was possible that he would sacrifice them all in order to save others. It was the strangest form of selflessness Mala had ever encountered, and also one of the most seemingly genuine.
That was all well and good, but Mala had to make it out alive, and she had no desire to do so without Darc in tow. And Trey, of course.
“Can you get his attention?” she yelled at him.
“I’ve never had much luck with it before,” he said. “Hold on.”
Trey reached down and grabbed a pinecone, throwing it with what looked like all of his concentration at his partner. It went right past him. Trey gave Mala a wry expression and tried again. Even farther away that time.
Mala sighed internally and grabbed a pinecone herself. She threw as hard as could, hitting Darc square on the back of the head. The bald detective spun around, spotting them both.
“What are you doing here?”
Trey and Mala exchanged glances. He
didn’t
know they were there. Not good.
“Trying to help you, dude!” Trey yelled back. “Better question… what are
you
doing here? ‘Cause this does not seem like such a fun place to just hang out.”
“There is a center to this triangle,” Darc responded, turning to stare back into the forest.
“Triangle? What triangle?”
Mala heard Trey’s question, but managed to figure it out before Darc said anything. “The thermite reaction Darc spoke of. It forms a triangle.”
Trey whipped his head back and forth between Mala and Darc. “What…? How…?” He turned to Darc, then seemed to think better of it. He faced off with Mala. “How the eff did you know that?”
“The line of burning thermite was approaching us from an angle. We heard over the radio that there were two more groups that had run into the same thing.” She shrugged. “I took a guess.”
“Dammit all to hell. Fine,” he ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end. “Okay, Darc. Where’s the center.”
They rounded a tree and Darc pointed. There, in the middle of a cleared patch of earth, was a pattern of white light, crisscrossing the entire area. The intersecting lines created the image of a huge eye.
But that wasn’t the most important part of the panorama. There, in the center of the circle that depicted the iris, was tied a naked man. He was lit in the garish light emanating from the thermite, and there were darker streaks on his face and torso. Dirt? Blood? It was impossible to tell from here.
Mala gasped, horrified at what she was seeing. There wasn’t a lot of time for her to finish reacting, as Darc sprinted off toward the circle of flame.
Following along behind, Mala felt herself pushed back by the extreme heat of the thermite reaction. How was Darc standing it? It felt like the skin of her face and neck were scalding as she got closer to the line.
Darc hopped over the first row of thermite, the outer portion of the eye. As he did so, he must have triggered some sort of additional reaction, as a new set of white flames flared up in what would have been the white of the eye, forcing Darc toward the center iris, where the naked man had begun moaning in agony from the increase in heat surrounding him.
From what Mala could see, there was almost no way for Darc to get out of the trap in which he was now stuck. His desire to rescue the victim may have led to his own fiery death.
And Mala would be right there, unable to look away while it happened.
CHAPTER 15
The logic pathways converged on the center, where the groaning man had now seen Darc. His cries were no more articulate, but they now seemed directed toward Darc, begging for his assistance.
That assistance was becoming more and more challenging as the moments passed. Not only had Darc’s entry into the outer eye started a new aluminum thermite reaction headed inward, it began another moving in the opposite direction.
Toward Mala and Trey.
These new lines must have been buried beneath the surface of the ground, as Darc had not seen their distinctive mounding as he ran in toward the center. But the shallow burial was nothing that would impede the chemical reaction happening.
The lines spread away from one another as they traveled outward from the iris of the eye. That would allow Trey and Mala to escape if they hurried quickly enough.
“Move back! Find the points of the triangle. There will be other individuals trapped there,” he called out to the pair. The lines of thermite sped toward them. Mala’s expression was strange… it appeared set, as if it were carved in stone, and for a moment, Darc feared she would stay and be immolated. But moments later, she turned and sped after an already running Trey.
Darc turned his attention back toward the figure on the ground.
“Do not move. Do not speak.” There was no way to know what other triggers were here. The thermite reaction forced him closer and closer to the inner circle of the iris, where the man’s body was tied down to stakes. His arms and legs, like the others, were spread out, but there was no pentagram inscribed inside.
Yet.
That was the final trap.
Allowing the green lines of light in his mind to trace his path, Darc ran and leapt up and into the center of the circle, flattening out his body just before he landed.
Right on top of the man’s torso.
Darc did what he could to spread out his body weight to keep the damage to a minimum, but still felt a snap beneath him as several of the man’s ribs broke. The figure’s breath whooshed out of his chest, followed by an intense moan. Judging from the man’s contorted face and what had just occurred, Darc surmised the man was in pain.
“Remain still while I release you.” Darc worked to free the man from the stakes driven into the ground. The cords around his wrists had been tied tight and were cutting off the circulation to the victim’s extremities. The flesh around the ropes had swollen, making it difficult for Darc to gain a purchase with his fingers. In addition, the man beneath him had begun to writhe, which caused his arms and legs to quiver. Darc would grab a knot and begin working on it, only to have it snatched out of his grip.
“That is not still,” he stated through teeth gritted with strain. Finally, Darc managed to release one of the arms. The man immediately swung his freed limb around, flailing in his pain.
His movements must have triggered the final trap. The lines of the pentagram began to be traced in the dirt by incandescent rays moving into the center of the circle.
The logic lines warped, readjusting the timetable. It was impossible to free the man before the flame reached him.
Darc had failed.
Several options snaked their way through his consciousness. He snatched hold of one of them, grabbing the man by his shoulders and shaking him to gain his attention.
“Who was your attacker?” Darc demanded.
The man groaned and looked back at the approaching flame.
Darc shook him harder. “Do you know who it was?”
The man opened his mouth as if to answer, displaying a gaping hole filled with blood. The man’s tongue had been ripped out. He could not answer.
The human life beneath Darc was soon to be snuffed out. Darc had not saved him, nor had he been successful in gaining additional information.
Not only that, but Darc’s own life was now in serious danger.
A rapid analysis of the lines of logic gave him one option. That option gave him an 83.2% chance of survival, but required him to leave this man to die an agonizing death. The choice was clear. Darc had to abandon this man.
And yet, a bright white ray of brilliance shown in Darc’s mind, surpassing the radiance of the thermite reaction around him. He would not leave, but would do what he could to release the victim before the flame reached them both.
Darc did so, releasing the man’s other hand and one of his ankles right before the flame reached the body. The trap was now complete, and there was no feasible way out of the scenario that Darc could ascertain.
That continued to be the case until the helicopter that flew into place above him threw out a rope that hit Darc square in the face. It hurt, but not as badly as what was coming for them both. The pathways of color adjusted, showing Darc the new plan.
He looped the rope around and under the man’s armpits, tying it off with a bowline knot. Turning to face the helicopter above, he raised his thumb to indicate that they should be lifted up.
The bright threads calculated the weight capacity of the rope, as well as the approximate weight of the victim. The answer came, a symbol that displayed its uncertainty even as it proclaimed probable success. The rescue would be a near thing, especially considering the man’s ankle was still attached.
The chopper rose in the air, with Darc resting his feet on the man’s shoulders and holding onto the line above him. It would not be pleasant for the victim, but that would be nothing compared to what was about to happen to his ankle.
The line pulled taut, stretching the man out to his full length. There was a pop of the man’s ankle bones separating right before the stake was ripped out of the ground by the lift from the helicopter.
And then they were free, soaring up toward the sky, looking down at the tops of the trees. The thermite reaction spread out around Darc, forming the expected triangle, with the eye in the middle and lines radiating outward in a hellish version of glory.
At each of the points of the circle burned another pentagram. Whether those other three circles still contained their bodies, Darc could not ascertain from this position.
A voice called out from above him. Trey.
“I saved you, man,” he yelled over the noise of the chopper. “You’re welcome.”
Darc puzzled over that statement for a moment. It seemed that Trey expected some sort of thank you from him. He would need to say something to his partner in response to the rescue Trey had apparently mustered.
If they were headed to the hospital, Darc would be relieved.
It would take him that long to figure out what to say.
* * *
Janey sat and stared at Pyper, her babysitter.
Her babysitter was on the couch in the living room, reading a book. But she hadn’t turned any pages in a long time, and the lines of color in Janey’s head told her that her babysitter wasn’t really reading right now.
Janey was facing her across the coffee table, where she had been drawing pictures for the last few minutes. It seemed to be helping calm Pyper down, at least a little bit.
Pyper had spent the last three hours doing everything she could to stay right next to Janey. When Janey went to her room, Pyper was right there with a card game. If she went to the bathroom, Pyper would ask her every two seconds if she was doing okay in there and was there anything Pyper could get her? Even though she knew that Janey didn’t talk.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true, but Janey didn’t talk much out
loud
. The only thing she’d said in her outside voice since her mommy and daddy had died was Darc’s name. And that was months ago, and only because the mean social services people were taking her away from him.
And now Darc was somewhere out there with Mala and probably Trey, finding killers and protecting people like her. And all Janey wanted to be doing was helping.
It was so frustrating being little. No one took you seriously.
That wasn’t true either, though. Darc took her seriously. More than Mala or Trey or Maggie did. And Mala and Trey and Maggie took her much more seriously than any other people Janey had ever met in her life.
Popeye snorted at her and said that no one could take a girl seriously that still liked My Little Pony and wore pigtails. Showed what he knew. Janey didn’t care about My Little Pony any more. Now it was Lalaloopsy dolls. Silly bear. And she couldn’t help it that Mala liked her in pigtails.