Fire Spirit (29 page)

The boy blinked up at him. ‘Should I?'

‘Not necessarily. But I know who you are. More to the point, I know
what
you are, too, and I know why you're here and I know what you want.'

‘So what are
you
?' the boy retorted. ‘Some kind of ever-livin' smartass?'

‘Not at all. I just happen to know what's what, that's all. Now, if this lady promises to file a report saying that all of those recent fires were caused by natural phenomena – how about you let the dog go?'

The boy frowned. ‘What's a natural fermonima?'

‘It means that those fires were nobody's fault. They were caused by lightning, maybe, or a short-circuit, or a chemical spill, something like that. That way, the investigations get closed, and nobody will come looking for you.'

‘No dogs snifflin'?'

‘No dogs. No cops. No children's services. Nobody from the Fire Department. Nobody.'

Martin stepped back. The boy looked up at Ruth and said, ‘Would you do that?'

Out of the corner of his mouth, Martin said, ‘
For Christ's sake, say yes
.
You don't
have to mean it.
'

Ruth cleared her throat. ‘Yes, OK,' she said, loud and clear. ‘I'd do that.'

‘You promise? Swear to God and spit in the sky?'

‘I promise.'

‘Swear to God and spit in the sky?'

But Bob Kowalski said, ‘Hold up a tootin' minute here! We're talking about three serious cases of probable arson, with multiple fatalities. We can't make no promises like that. These fires, they're going to be investigated thoroughly and we're not going to let up until we find out how the hell they started and who's responsible, just like we always do.'

‘Chief . . .' said Martin, and made a patting gesture in the air which meant that he should hold it down. ‘We have a very special situation here, Chief, if you understand what I mean.'

‘Excuse me? You might be Ruthie's friend, sir, but I don't think that you're in any position to decide what's a special situation and what isn't, or how we're going to respond to it, even if it is. Officers of the Kokomo Fire Department don't make no promises to cover up potential cases of deliberate fire-setting, not for nobody, and under no circumstances, not ever.'

Ruth crossed over to Bob Kowalski, turning her back on the Creepy Kid so that he couldn't see her face. ‘Bob,' she said, and her voice was low and urgent. ‘Please go along with this. Please. I need him to let Tyson go.'

‘Ruthie – you don't have to promise this kid nothing. He's only a kid, and a skinny kid at that. I can take him apart with one hand.'

‘Are you
mumblin'
again?' the boy protested. ‘I told you I didn't want you to do no
mumblin
'!'

Ruth turned around to face him. ‘I've made you a promise. Now let my dog go.'

‘You never said swear to God and spit in the sky.'

At that moment, Bob Kowalski's cellphone made a siren noise. He flipped it open and said, ‘B.C. Kowalski. What the hell is it? I'm tied up right now.'

But then he raised one hand, as if to stop Ruth and Martin from saying or doing anything more, at least until he had finished talking. He listened for a long time, his hand still raised, and then he said, ‘When did this happen? What?
What
? How many?'

He listened again. The Creepy Kid said, ‘You didn't promise yet. Not properly.'

‘All right,' said Ruth. ‘Swear to God and spit in the sky.'

But Bob Kowalski suddenly said, ‘Christ on crutches, you're kidding me! OK, Jim. I'll be there in ten. Who's attending from Fire and Arson? OK, great. I have Ruthie with me, too. Yes, she's here. I'll bring her along.'

He snapped his cellphone shut and his face was grim.

‘What is it?' Ruth asked him.

‘Charles Gardner's daughter, Nadine, out at Weatherfield Stables. Looks like she slaughtered seven of their own horses, cut their throats.'

‘Nadine Gardner? I can't believe it. She's such a lovely girl. Do they know why she did it?'

‘We don't know the full details, not yet. Nadine's dead. Seems like she was trying to ride away from the stables on her favorite horse, but they caught alight.'

‘
What
? What do you mean “they caught alight”?'

‘Pretty much cremated, that's what Jim said. Rider
and
horse. Charles Gardner was coming home and he ran right into them. Turned into his driveway and they were galloping hell-for-leather right toward him, like a four-legged fireball.'

Ruth looked across at Martin, and then at the Creepy Kid. Martin said, ‘Easy, Ruth.'

But Ruth stalked up to the Creepy Kid and snatched Tyson's collar again and pulled him. ‘You let my dog go!' she screamed at him. ‘I made you a promise so you let my dog go!'

‘
No
!' the boy shouted back at her. ‘I don't trust you, not one bit! You think I started
that
fire, too, don't you? You think I set fire to that woman and that horse!'

‘So you had nothing to do with it, did you? Just like you had nothing to do with any of those other fires? How do you even know about it?
How
? And how can a woman and a horse catch on fire? How can that possibly happen?'

‘It was an act of God. They was
all
acts of God.'

‘
God
? God had nothing to do with this, did He? It was
you.
I don't know how you do it, not yet, but let me tell you this: if I'm going to make any promises here today, I promise to find out, and when I do find out I promise to hand my evidence over to the cops, and I promise to see you locked up in the Howard County Juvenile Detention Facility for as long as the law will allow. Swear to God and spit in the sky.'

As she shouted at him, the boy began to shuffle himself away from her, on his backside, still with his arms tight around Tyson. Tyson himself was wriggling and struggling, but only spasmodically. He seemed to find it impossible to break free, as if he had lost all of his strength, or couldn't decide any longer where his loyalty lay.

‘Give me my dog, you little runt!' Ruth shouted at him, as the boy retreated. ‘Give me my dog or I'll twist your goddamned ears off!'

‘Ruth!' Martin called after her. ‘Ruth –
don't
!'

But Ruth was too angry to take any notice. She stalked up to the boy and seized Tyson's collar again. ‘
Give – me – my – fucking – dog
!' she shouted at him, right in his face.

At that instant, while he was still clutching Tyson tight to his chest, the boy detonated into a mass of fire. Orange flames burst out all over him, as if he had been drenched in gasoline and somebody had struck a match. He let out a panicky howl of pain, and Tyson screamed in a way that Ruth had never heard a dog scream before, almost like a human baby. She half-jumped, half-stumbled backward, both of her hands scorched.

‘
Tyson
!' she screamed, but even though Tyson was scrabbling wildly to get himself free, the burning boy still wouldn't release him.

‘
Foam
!' Bob Kowalski bellowed at the fire crew who were standing around the pumper. ‘Keiller! McKay! We need some goddamned foam here! Like,
now
!'

Ruth stripped off her coat and bundled it around her hands to protect them. Bob Kowalski said, ‘Ruthie! Don't even think about it!' The boy was already blazing fiercely, in a column of flame that was over six feet high. The fire burned faster and hotter with every second, with a soft roaring noise like a giant blowtorch.

Ruth held her arms up to shield her face, but all the same she could feel the heat against her legs, right through her jeans. She approached the boy as close as she could, and made a desperate lunge to drag Tyson out of his arms. But Tyson, too, was on fire. All of his black fur had been singed off, so that his skin was red-raw. He was jerking convulsively from side to side, like a cockroach on a hotplate. Right in front of Ruth's eyes, his spine burst out of the skin on his back.

‘
Tyson
!' she wept. ‘
Oh God, Tyson
!'

Tyson turned his head round and stared at Ruth in agony, but the fire was far too hot for her to pull him out of it, at least 700 degrees Celsius, probably more. She knew there was nothing she could do for him, nothing to spare him from his pain, and that she had no choice but to watch him die. She tried to see the boy's face through the flames, but by now it was nothing more than a blackened voodoo mask, with flames pouring out of his empty eye-sockets, and even as she looked at him, his jaw dropped open and fire gushed out of his mouth.

‘Tyson, oh God, Tyson. Oh, God.' The heat was so intense that Ruth had to step even further back. Three firefighters were running over from the pumper, reeling out a long hose behind them. They started to blast the fire with high-pressure foam, and within a few seconds it was noisily extinguished, leaving nothing but a wide black mark on the ground, and a small clutter of smoking bones.

Ruth could see Tyson's ribcage, and it reminded her so much of the rack of barbecued ribs that she had eaten at the Windmill Grill last week that her mouth was flooded with sour-tasting vomit. She turned away and bent double and retched. She had seen scores of people and animals with horrifying burns, but they had never sickened her as much as this. Tyson had been hers. He had expected her to take care of him and protect him. She found it as devastating as if she had seen her own child burned alive in front of her.

Martin came up to her and without any hesitation put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Ruth? Are you OK?' he asked her. ‘It wasn't your fault, believe me.' Smoke was drifting past them and it smelled strongly of burned hair and flesh.

Ruth looked up at him, her eyes blurred with tears. ‘What do you mean? You warned me not to, didn't you?' She unwrapped her coat and saw that all of her fingers were blistered. ‘God, this hurts. I can't imagine what poor Tyson must have gone through.'

Martin said, ‘Ruth, it wasn't your fault. That boy has been doing everything he can to discourage you from investigating these fires any further. He's on a mission from hell, Ruth, and he doesn't want you interfering. I told you, your best option is for you and your family to get as far away from here as possible.'

‘If he's trying to stop me from interfering, why didn't he burn
me
, instead of Tyson?'

‘I wish I could tell you, but I don't know for sure. There's still so much about the afterlife that we don't understand. And we won't be able to, until we die. By which time it will be too goddamned late, won't it? Excuse my French.'

Ruth walked over to the edge of the charred patch under the trees where Tyson and the Creepy Kid had caught fire. The grass and the leaves and the undergrowth had been completely burned away, leaving nothing but blackened, smoking soil. In the center of the patch lay Tyson's skeleton, with his dog-tags and the steel studs from his collar scattered around it.

Bob Kowalski came up beside her, and sniffed, as if he could smell mischief, as well as smoke. ‘Real sorry for Tyson, Ruthie. What a hell of a thing to happen.'

Ruth said, ‘It was that boy. That Creepy Kid. He's like something out of a nightmare.'

‘He just caught fire, for Chrissakes. No accelerant, nothing. Not even a goddamned Zippo.'

‘It's like I told you, Bob. It's like some really bad dream, and now you've seen it for yourself. Julie Benfield, Tilda Frieburg, the Spirit of Kokomo bus. Nadine Gardner, too, by the sound of it. How do a woman and a horse both catch fire? Now poor Tyson, too.'

‘So what are you saying to me, Ruthie? All this stuff you were telling me about dead folks, you really think it's true?'

‘I don't know. But I think we have to keep an open mind. All of these fires are way beyond our normal experience. I mean, you know how Jack and me work. We always stick to the evidence. But something totally unnatural is happening here, and so far none of the evidence is enough to explain what it is.'

The fire crew had brought out two tungsten floodlights, and set them up on metal poles to illuminate the razed area of soil. Bob Kowalski shaded his eyes with his hand and peered at Tyson's remains. ‘Hate to say this, but where's the kid at? Like, where are
his
bones?'

Ruth said, ‘Wait.' She stepped carefully across the burned patch, until she reached Tyson's skeleton. His back legs and his tail had been less seriously burned, and were still intact, and when she saw them she felt sick rising up in her throat again. She took three deep breaths, and then she hunkered down and gently brushed the soil around his skeleton. It was covered with heaps of gritty gray powder, some of it damp and lumpy from the firefighters' foam. She carefully picked up a lump between finger and thumb and carried it back to Bob Kowalski.

‘What's this?' he asked her.

‘What does it look like? It's the Creepy Kid. What's left of him, anyhow.'

‘You're kidding me! I witnessed that fire for myself, with my own eyes. You don't get remains like this, not even from a fire as hot as that. You only get remains like this when you've been cremated in a proper crematorium, and your bones have been all crushed up in the old crembola.'

‘That's right, Chief,' said Martin.

‘So how in hell–?'

At that moment, however, Ruth saw that Amelia was crossing the parking lot toward them. ‘Excuse me, Bob,' she said. ‘There's no way I want Amelia to see this. She adored Tyson.'

She hurried back and managed to intercept Amelia just as she was stepping over the chain-link fence. She took hold of both of Amelia's hands and said, ‘I'm so sorry, sweetheart. There's been an accident. Tyson got burned.'