Child of Fire

The mayor stepped in front of her, his arms spread wide, his fat cheeks puffed out in an almost comical way.

I swung the ghost knife at the gun. Cabot squeezed the trigger. The hammer drew back. I was too slow. The gun fired. A bare second later, the ghost knife swept through it, slicing it apart.

The mayor flinched as the bullet struck him just above the collarbone.

Cabot squeezed the trigger again, but the gun was already coming apart. It didn’t fire. He turned toward me, his mouth opening in what I imagined would be angry protest. He looked at the remains of the gun in his hand in utter shock.

I slid the edge of the ghost knife into his chest and, before he had a chance to go slack, threw an overhand left. I was off-balance, but the punch landed just in front of his earlobe. Cabot dropped like a marionette with his strings cut.

I turned toward the others. The mayor was holding the top of his right shoulder with his bloody left hand. He stumbled away from Cynthia and looked at her. Then he collapsed onto the floor. The bullet appeared to have only grazed him, but he was bleeding profusely. His face looked pale.

Cynthia looked at me. Her mouth hung open in a little O, and her face was slack and pale.

I don’t like guns. I stared down at the mayor for a moment too long, wishing the whole thing hadn’t happened.

His face grew more pale by the second. Cynthia gaped at him.

“Call an ambulance,” I said. Cynthia turned her empty gaze toward me. She seemed to be in a trance. “Right now!” I shouted.

She jumped and lunged for the phone on her desk. She wasn’t used to being yelled at.

I grabbed an arm cover off the couch and knelt beside the mayor. I confirmed that the bullet had grazed him just above his collarbone, well away from the arteries in his neck. If he’d been less fat, it might have missed him altogether.

I wadded up the arm cover and pressed it against the wound. “Well, well,” I said, trying to keep my tone light, “look what you’ve managed to do. This doesn’t look too bad, though.”

“It hurts,” he said.

“Being a hero usually does.”

“What? I’m not a hero. I wasn’t thinking. I just-“

His face was getting paler. I grabbed a cushion off the couch and slid it under his feet. “Of course you didn’t think,” I said. “Who would jump in the path of a bullet if they were thinking?”

Cynthia spoke into the phone, asking for an ambulance. She spoke so quickly she was on the verge of babbling. I called her name to catch her attention, then told her to speak as calmly as she could. She took a deep, shuddering breath and recited her address into the phone. She told the operator on the other end that the mayor had been shot.

“I don’t want to die,” the mayor said. His voice was small and childlike. He squeezed his eyes shut, and I saw tears running down his face. “My wife…”

“I’m no doctor,” I told him, “but I think you’re going to be okay. Harlan was shot much worse than you, and he’s recovering. Just try to take deep breaths and stay calm. The ambulance is on the way.” The color came back into his face just a little.

Cynthia hung up the phone and stared down at the scene in utter befuddlement. “What happened to Uncle Cabot’s gun?”

“Come over here and make yourself useful,” I said. She circled around her desk and knelt beside the mayor. “Put your hands on this cloth and keep a steady pressure on the wound.”

She looked at my bloody hands and balked.

“This man just took a bullet for you,” I said. My voice was low and edged with anger. “Now do it.”

She did.

The mayor looked up at her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so embarrassed-“

Cynthia burst into tears.

I watched her for a moment, to make sure that she kept her hands on the wound. She did. The mayor began to comfort her, and his color definitely improved. It helped him to have someone to comfort.

Cabot lay in the doorway. I wiped my bloody hands on the front of his shirt, then began to pat him down. He didn’t have another gun. He moaned and began to come around.

My ghost knife was in my pocket, although I didn’t remember putting it away. I slid it through his hand. It wouldn’t keep him unconscious, but it would make him docile.

I heard sirens. “You two sit tight,” I said. “I’m going to open the front door.” Cynthia and the mayor kept murmuring to each other. They didn’t seem to hear me.

I dragged Cabot into the hall. Docile or not, I didn’t want him waking up in the same room as them. Then I walked over and opened the front door.

The EMTs were already jogging up the steps, a stretcher in their hands. Behind them was Emmett Dubois, his hand on his holstered weapon. Emmett squinted the length of the hall and saw Cabot lying at the far end, his shirt smeared with blood. Cabot shifted his leg, barely on the edge of consciousness.

“He’s right this way,” I said to them, pointing to the open office door. They rushed past me.

When I turned around, I saw Emmett Dubois pointing his gun at me. “Turn around, put your hands behind your