Faith of the Divine Inferno - Leslie Thompson (best short novels of all time TXT) 📗

yet able to hold me, and I fell back down on my butt in the muck.
The window and door exploded in gouts of heat, glass, and wood, sending bits of flaming shrapnel into the room and peppering our bodies with shallow cuts and tiny bruises. Heat filled the room with smoke, and Shaw hurried to my side and tugged at my arm. He finally scooped me off of the floor, only to turn and find that there was no passing through the flames and out of the room.
“Can you move yet?” he demanded, putting me down on the bed.
“I think so.” To prove it, I grabbed the edges of the comforter and wrapped it around my body while Shaw did the same with a thin blanket and sheet. Before I could protest, he slung me over his shoulder, pulled the blankets around his face as best he could, and ran into the flames.
I felt searing heat blast my backside, and then we burst into the blessed coolness of the hallway with the blankets on fire and our clothes smoldering. Shaw threw me to the ground and followed me to roll around on the floor to smother the flames. But the evil fire would not be denied, and it persisted in its consumption of his body. Shaw let out a scream of agony that provoked one neighbor to demand silence in somewhat rude and colorful language, and drove another into the hallway. I was too busy with my own burning body to do much more than vaguely acknowledge the pounding of feet across the floor, and then I was drenched in water cold enough to stop my heart.
The feet moved off to where Shaw was writhing and poured more of the icy water over his body. Shaw shrieked louder than before and then passed out. I laid there in shock and stared at the ceiling, relieved to be out of that room and in one piece. Then the pain of my blistered skin flared, and I didn’t think about anything else for a few moments. I’ve had plenty of burns before, some I got when the Catholics went on their witch burning kick and I still wore faded scars from a trip into a volcano. The new burns hurt like hell, but they were no worse than anything else I’d ever endured. But no matter how many times I experience it, maintaining coherent thought was all but impossible for the first few minutes after the flames were extinguished.
A face appeared over mine. It took me a few moments of breathing exercises before I could make my eyes focus, but when I could finally do it, the face was young, beautiful, and female.
“Mabel Fortuna?” I croaked, recognizing her high Latin features and delicate bones. She was actually flattered that I had recognized her and she blushed. She shouldn’t have been so happy about it. I remember everyone who had the potential to be a pain in my ass. I groaned and started to sit up.
“Oh don’t do that!” she cried, gently pressing my shoulders back to the floor. “You’re badly hurt and you might make it worse.”
Irritable, I pushed her away and rolled onto my hands and knees. The move hurt so much that I had to grit my teeth to stifle my groan. Mabel hovered too close, uncertain of what the right thing to do was, but worried that I’d beat her up if she did the wrong thing. She shouldn’t have worried. I would have hit her no matter what she did.
I managed to get up enough to sit on my knees and found Alejandro stepping out of the open door of our room. “What were the two of you doing here alone?” he snapped, his dark eyes glittering with anger. “Why didn’t you seek refuge at the safe house?”
“Because if I wanted to spend the night in the company of stalkers and conspiracy theorists, then I’d turn myself in to the cops,” I growled back. I was in no mood to sit through a lecture. Alejandro scowled at me and knelt beside Shaw and examined him. Shaw was shivering and he bitched whenever the other man touched him. He didn’t appear to have suffered significant harm from our dash through the blaze, but his right forearm was roasted and blood seeped from the wound on his belly.
“We should take him to the hospital,” I said, wondering what I was going to tell the doctors. I missed the days when physicians didn’t want to know how their patients got hurt. Now they wanted to know every dirty detail and then they called the police. It made finding good healthcare all but impossible.
“No.” Alejandro shook his head and knelt down. “His injuries are superficial and with that faerie mark he wears, most of it should heal before he can get an infection. We’ll get Detective Shaw back to the safe house and treat him there.” Alejandro gave me a look that dared me to argue with him. I just sighed and looked away. I was too tired and hurt to fight anymore.

Chapter 22

The Children of Orpheus were in a gleeful snit as soon as they knew I was in residence. Everywhere I went, a herd of novices followed me around like a bunch of groupies, giving me no privacy or peace of mind. They giggled and scratched in the notebooks clutched in their sweaty hands while I gritted my teeth and fought the urge to throttle them.
“That ought to do it,” the nurse told me as she finished taping gauze to the burns on my back. The comforter and my clothes had protected me from the worst of the worst of the fire in our escape, but I’d still managed to suffer second degree burns, mostly on my backside. They hurt like crazy, but the blistering was minor and I would heal quickly. “Housekeeping should have a room ready for you, and they’re sending two associates to your apartment to gather clothing and your personal items.”
“How is Shaw?” I asked, accepting the loose t-shirt and slacks the nurse handed me. It wasn’t much but they were better than the psychedelic rags Bridget had given me.
“Given the severity of his injuries, I thought Detective Shaw would be in bed for weeks recovering. But he is healing almost as fast as you are which has all the Children in a tizzy trying to figure out why. The popular theory is that he is a newer, younger version of you,” the nurse replied. “Personally, I think that if there were more immortals like you in the world, we would have found them by now. I think he’s healing up fast because of faerie magic.”
I should have known the Children would figure it out. If they knew that much then they probably knew about the geas too. I think it went without saying that the Children would try to break it in the hopes of blackmailing me into helping them with whatever brand of stupid they had going. I supposed it didn’t matter since I had no intention of accepting help from them. I would find my way out of this mess like I always do.
“Where are you going?” the nurse asked, discarding the trash and hurrying after me.
“I’m going to check on Shaw and then I’m going to bed.” If I had a room in the safe house, then so did he. Once I made sure he was settled in, I would find an empty bed and go to sleep.
“I’m afraid you can’t do that right now,” the nurse said anxiously. “Since the demon has attacked you openly, the Conservatoris think that the attacks will escalate. They are insisting that you and the detective remain here under protective custody. The Great Bard has agreed to their demands and is taking every precaution to ensure your safety.”
“The Conservatoris?” I didn’t like the sound of that. There was a time when I made it my personal goal to kill every last one of them in as gruesome and horrible a manner as possible. I had been a bit enthusiastic in the completion of that mission, so I doubted that their descendants were overflowing with goodwill for me.
The Conservatoris had organized in the months after Christ was crucified, swearing vengeance against the followers of Judas Iscariot for his betrayal of their Savior. Gossip on the streets of Rome described Judas as the least dynamic of the Apostles and had no followers to speak of. The Conservatoris had not believed that was possible. After all, Christ had been the son of God, how could one puny mortal plot to kill him without help? When they sat down and thought about it, they came to a single conclusion. If there were no disciples to help Judas, then he had to have had otherworldly assistance. And who had better motive to destroy Jesus than Lucifer?
With that assumption firmly in their minds, the Conservatoris went looking for an army of demons that didn’t exist. Their search created hysteria among the ordinary peasants, and fearing the Conservatoris terrible wrath, they welcomed them with open arms. First they feasted the monsters, and then they pointed out the unloved and unwanted citizens of their village, claiming that those individuals were demons in disguise. The Conservatoris went to their work then, and in the clutches of their misguided religious fervor, they often slaughtered whole villages.
While the Conservatoris were out slaughtering the rude and crude of the ancient world, I was minding my own business as a domestic slave for a wealthy merchant. I had been taken while travelling through the Caucus Mountains, and when I was sold, I became responsible for the health and care of the master’s three children. It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with the sweet-natured scamps, and there wasn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for them; even when it meant enduring the yolk of slavery to watch them grow.
Like any scion of the wealthy, my master’s children were often targets of kidnapping for ransom. The eldest of the children had been snatched during a shopping trip, and I had been enthusiastically violent in his recovery. In the ensuing battle, I received a stab wound to my heart in full view of the boy, and he watched as I did not die.
Impressed by what he had witnessed, the eleven year old told the story to anyone who would listen; elaborating the details each time he told it. Soon, the entire city believed that my master was in possession of a Magyar warrior girl who was a powerful witch enjoying the favors of her native gods. It wasn’t true and my master knew it, but it didn’t stop him from trotting me out and showing me off for important dinner guests.
It didn’t take long for the Conservatoris to catch wind of my growing legend and skulk into town to investigate. I heard rumors of their interest in me, but I thought that my master’s prestige would keep me safe from their evil. But in the dark of one moonless night, they snuck into our home and slaughtered everyone in residence, including the children I loved so well. Enraged, I