Fire Spirit (37 page)

‘No, Ruth. It absolutely
does not
. I'm asking you what
you
think, is all. I still prefer to believe that for some obscure reason those cremated remains were deliberately left at the crime scenes by some human perpetrator. Maybe some religious nut.'

‘There was far too much, Ron. Even the remains of a fully-grown man rarely weigh as much as three kilos.'

‘Well, I'm damned if I know. Maybe he was twins. Maybe he was triplets, even, all with the same DNA. Let me finish up my investigation first.'

Ruth said, ‘OK. But I should really go now. You'll let me know if you find out anything from NCIC, won't you?'

‘I surely will. And I hope that Jeffrey gets over this real quick. And Craig, too. Give him our best.'

Ruth and Amelia hurried down the hospital steps and ran across the rainswept parking lot. As soon as they had climbed into the car and slammed the doors, Amelia said, ‘We have to do something, Mommy!'

‘What do you mean, we have to do something? Like
what
?'

Amelia put down her rain-hood and clamped both hands over her ears. ‘They're going to come through! I can hear them all the time now! They don't want to wait any longer!'

‘You mean those people we saw at Doctor Beech's clinic? Those people who were all on fire?'

Amelia turned to her and her face was miserable and frightened. ‘They won't wait any longer. They say it's their turn.'

‘Listen, sweetheart, don't worry. I know that the past couple of days have been really horrible, but we have to be strong. You said so yourself, didn't you? We have to stick together, and not allow ourselves to be intimidated. You know what your grandpa used to say? “I'm not scaredified. Not of nobody nor nothing, not never.”'

She switched on her cellphone, and it warbled almost immediately. It was a voice message from Martin.

‘
Ruth
?
What's happening
?
I've been trying to call you all morning. I tried the Fire Department but they wouldn't tell me where you were. Ruth – I think it's urgent. I think it's all hell let loose
.'

TWENTY-TWO

M
artin arrived outside the house a few minutes after one. The sky was beginning to clear, as if a dark curtain were being dragged away, and a fresh wind was blowing, but there were still unsettled rumblings in the distance. Jeff's burned-out Grand Prix had been taken away by the Fire Department, although the front of the house was still cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tapes that bounced and flapped in the wind. The red bricks of the driveway were scorched and cracked, as if a meteorite had landed there, and the lower branches of the basswood tree looked like the blackened fingers of an arthritic witch.

‘What happened?' Martin asked her, as soon as Ruth opened the front door.

‘What do you think? The Creepy Kid happened.'

‘Oh, God. Tell me.'

‘The Creepy Kid set himself alight inside of Jeff's new car. He just caught fire, like a thermic lance. Jeff has forty per cent burns and Craig's hands were burned, too, when he was pulling him out.'

‘Oh, Ruth, Jesus. I'm so sorry.'

‘It wasn't your fault, Martin. You did warn me, didn't you? You warned me once and you warned me twice.'

‘I know. I know I did. But I never thought that he'd come after you so quickly. Mind you, I think that things are coming to a head.'

Ruth led Martin through to the living-room. Amelia came out of the kitchen, wearing a sloppy orange sweater with a cowl neck and overlong sleeves, her hair tied up in bunches. ‘Hi, Martin! I'm making some iced chocolate with chocolate flaky bits. Do you want some?'

Martin smiled but shook his head. ‘I think I'll pass on that, thanks, Amelia.' Ruth thought that he was looking bloodless and tired, as if he hadn't slept well. His hair was mussed up and he hadn't shaved.

‘How about something stronger?' she asked him. ‘I could use a drink myself, to tell you the truth.'

‘Jeffrey and Craig . . . where are they now?' Martin asked her, as she poured them each a large glass of Goosecross Merlot.

‘St Joseph's emergency unit. Jeff's airway was burned so he's still on a respirator. They're giving him fluids and trying to keep him free from infection. There isn't a whole lot more they can do, not just yet. Craig – well, his hands are badly blistered, but they think that he should make a ninety per cent recovery.'

‘Ruth – I can't tell you how sorry I am. I should have realized what was happening a whole lot sooner.'

Amelia came out of the kitchen tinkling her glass of iced chocolate with a spoon. ‘They're coming through soon, aren't they, Martin? I hear them all the time now. They're jabbering, like jabberwockies.
Jabber-jabber-jabber
! We're coming through, we're coming through!'

‘I can hear them, too,' said Martin, wearily. ‘That's why I wanted to see you. We have to find
where
they're going to come through, and how, and we have to try and stop them. This is serious, Ruth. It sounds to me like the whole nine circles of hell are in a turmoil.'

‘“
We're all coming through
!
We're all coming through
”!' Amelia repeated, vigorously nodding her head. ‘“
You can't stop us now
!
We're all coming through
!”'

Martin reached across and took hold of Amelia's hand to quieten her. ‘I think I understand what's happening. I may be completely wrong, but if Amelia can hear the same voices that I can, then at least I know that I'm not the only one who's crazy.'

‘Before you go on,' said Ruth, ‘you'd better know what Ron Magruder's found out.' She told him about Velma Jackson and her four sons, and how Velma and Andrew had been burned to death. She also told him about Helen McTighe, and her brother Billy. She told him about the photographs, and how Velma Jackson and Julie Benfield had looked just like sisters.

‘I guessed as much,' said Martin. ‘Especially Pimo and his brothers. It's all beginning to make sense.'

‘Well, I'm glad it's making sense to you.'

Martin set down his wine glass. ‘Right from the beginning I thought that the Creepy Kid was somebody who had made a deal with a lesser god. God, angel, I'm not really sure. But your Detective Magruder, God bless him, has pretty much proved it for me. When he was burned to death, young Andrew Jackson would have been sent to the ninth circle of hell because of what he did to his mother, and because of the unresolved feelings of revenge that he still had for his brothers. He would have burned and burned, day after day, night after night. Unendurable pain, twenty-four-seven, for ever. Think about it. Wouldn't you sell your soul to be free of it, even for a minute?'

‘But why
him
? And how can he keep burning up to nothing but ashes and then come back to life again?'

Martin said, ‘I can't tell you why he was chosen in the first place. Maybe the gods sensed that he was ready to do what they wanted. Maybe he had sinned so badly that he needed redemption more than any other boy they could find. Whatever it was, they would have made a deal with him. They would have taken his immortal soul, in exchange for giving him darkness and peace. But once they possessed his soul they would have been able to resurrect his earthly remains. They would have been able to take his ashes and recreate him exactly as he was on the day that he died.

‘One morning, five years ago, Andrew Jackson woke up in the morning and put on his black T-shirt and his red jeans and went to school. He ate his free lunch and then he went home, and that's the boy you can still see today. Except that he's not that boy. He's an angel of death, like I said. He's a god, in a child's body. And as far as I can work out, he's going to go on taking revenge for every thirteen-year-old boy who ever got abused or mistreated, even if he's doing it by proxy. He's using Pimo and his two brothers to set up scenarios as near to their original abuse as possible – even if he's burning up innocent people who just happen to look like his abusers.

‘Every time one of those innocent people dies, the angel of death gets to take possession of their soul. As far as I can make out, none of them suffer. Julie Benfield, Tilda Frieburg – nor any of those seniors who got burned on the bus. They didn't go to hell to burn for ever, the way that Andrew Jackson did, and those people we saw in Doctor Beech's clinic. They got that wall-to-wall blackness that all of us long for, in the end. They got absolute nothingness. And that's what Andrew Jackson got, too, for surrendering his soul and allowing the angel to use his ashes. He got
peace.
'

‘But why do these gods
want
all of these people's souls?'

‘You'd have to ask Professor Solway about that. But I think he would tell you that life in heaven and hell is not so very different from life on earth. The more human souls that any god can gather around him, the more influence he has. It's spiritual politics. It's all about the power, and the glory. All of those stories about the war in heaven, with Lucifer finally getting cast out, they're true, in their way, although nobody knows what a god or an angel really is, or what they really look like.'

‘I'm trying to get my head around this, believe me,' said Ruth. ‘But I'm not finding it easy.'

Martin said, ‘I know. It's like all wars, you only know half the story until it's all over, and somebody's lost or won. But we don't have much time. Those voices that Ammy and I have been hearing, they're people from the ninth circle of hell who think that if
they
start ritualistic fires, if
they
re-enact their own deaths, they could end their suffering, too.'

‘But if what you said about Andrew Jackson is true, they have to make a deal with this angel first, the way
he
did. They have to get Pimo or somebody like him to set everything up.'

‘They should, and they probably won't find peace if they don't. But they're in agony, Ruth, and they don't want to wait any longer. They just want to come through and set fire to everything. Worse than that, though – if the people from the ninth circle of hell can find a way back to the living world, they'll
all
want to come back, from every other circle – plague victims, crash victims, drowning victims, all of them.'

‘You're not serious.'

‘Ruth – Jeff is in the hospital fighting for his life and you think I'm not serious? This could happen everywhere. Every single person who went to hell with unfinished business with the living, they could all come back through from underneath and make sure that they finish it.'

Ruth called Jack. She told him that Jeff was stable and that Craig was making good progress. Then she said, ‘Ron Magruder gave me your message about the remains from Weatherfield Stables – “more of the same”. I presume you meant cremated remains.'

‘You presumed right, Boss. I sent them over to Aaron Scheinman and he put a rush on them for me. Lo and behold, the DNA is identical to the other samples. That means we now have enough cremated remains from one individual to make two individuals and possibly half of a third. Impossible, of course. But true.'

‘Martin's here. He's explained it to me. I don't really understand it, and even if I could, I don't think I would believe it. But so far it's still the only explanation that makes any sense.'

‘You're not talking to a totally closed mind here, Ruth. Remember Lois.'

‘Did they bring Jeff's car in yet?'

‘The Grand Prix? Yes, it's in the garage. I'll be getting down there as soon as I've finished the computer model from the Walters Clinic. I've only just received Tyson's necropsy from the vet.'

‘Thanks, Jack. Call me as soon as you have any news, won't you?'

‘Of course. And, Ruth – take it easy, huh? You've had some pretty serious shocks in the past forty-eight hours, and you're only human, like the rest of us.'

‘Thanks, Jack.'

She hung up the phone, but almost immediately it warbled again.

‘Hi, Ruth. It's Sandra Garnet. Ron just had to go out to a hold-up at the Speedway gas station out on West Jefferson, but he asked me to call you asap.'

‘You've had some results from the NCIC?'

‘That's right. I found one case of arson that was just like the Spirit of Kokomo fire, and another just like Tilda Frieburg's. And guess what? In
both
cases, there was a thirteen-year-old boy involved.'

‘Go on.'

Sandra cleared her throat. ‘In May 2007, there was a serious fire at a mental hospital in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Seven elderly patients were burned to death, as well as a hospital porter and the thirteen-year-old grandson of one of the inmates.'

‘What happened?'

‘According to the medical examiner, all of the patients had been prone to violent outbursts so they had been put on a new drug called Occus-Ex to keep them calm and sociable. Unfortunately, it seems like the drug had exactly the opposite effect on them. One afternoon, with no apparent provocation, they beat up on each other and tore each other's clothes off and then they deliberately set fire to their day-room. The hospital porter was stabbed and wounded as he tried to put the flames out, and the boy was knocked unconscious when he tried to rescue his grandfather. They both died of second-degree burns and smoke inhalation.

‘The NCIC have sent me pictures of five of the deceased. At least one of them has a very strong resemblance to a woman called Ida Mae Lutz who died in the Spirit of Kokomo bus fire. The boy's name was Ricky Billings. They sent me his picture, too, and apart from his freckles and his fair hair he's the spitting image of Andrew Jackson.'