Circle of Enemies

There was a staircase on the other side of the flames, but I knew it led down to the front office. Instead, I turned to the stair at the other end of the hall. The door was propped open. As I stumbled toward it, choking and coughing, I saw that it was blocked by a pair of legs.

I pushed the door open. Stoned lay on his back on the stairs, his head hanging down and his mouth open. His face was bloody, as though he’d puked blood on himself, and there was a ragged hole where his windpipe was supposed to be. His shirt rippled—something moved under there.

Damn. I had screwed up again. At least one of Wally’s predators had escaped, and Stoned had died. I dragged him by the belt into the hall and let the metal door close. Fidel and his other two cousins were nowhere to be seen.

I stood over Stoned’s body, feeling dizzy and weak. I couldn’t breathe deeply without gagging. The sirens were getting closer, but they didn’t sound close enough. Stoned’s pant leg rippled then, and his shirt in two places. Did he have three of those nasty little bastards in him? I reached for my ghost knife, but it wasn’t there and I couldn’t remember where I’d left it.

To hell with it. I pulled him down the hall by the pant cuff. The dragging on the carpet caused his green plaid shirt to slide up, and I saw lumps under his skin moving down his body toward my hand, as though they could smell living flesh where it brushed his. I moved faster.

By the time the nearest predator was at Stoned’s knee, I was close enough to the fire to feel it scorching my back. I let go of his ankle and shuffled around to the other side of him. The bulges under his skin stopped moving toward his foot as though they’d lost the scent.

I didn’t want to give them the chance to find it again. I grabbed Stoned under the armpits and hoisted him up and through the doorway. I had to get so close that it felt like being on fire again, but I managed to drop him well into the flames.

I staggered back against the wall, coughing and choking. I crouched there, staying low where the air was still breathable, and watched to see if any of the little iron creatures came scuttling out of the flames. There was nothing I could do about it if they did, but I had to know.

My back and legs began to hurt in earnest now, and my wooziness grew stronger. I wanted to puke and take a nap but forced myself to wait and watch.

The flames spread, the sirens of fire trucks roared outside, and the smoke grew thick. No creatures came out of the fire toward me, but did that mean they’d been destroyed? I couldn’t think about it. My head was too muzzy.

Time to go. I crawled along the wall toward the metal door at the end of the hall. Saturday-morning public- service announcements had told me that I would find clean air at knee level, but I coughed and hacked on the stink of burning polyester. Just as I reached the edge of the door, it swung open.

Two firefighters rushed by me. They wore helmets and bulky masks, and I suspect they didn’t even see me there on the floor. I slipped into the stairwell and let the door close behind me.

The stairs were difficult. What smoke had gotten through rose up to the top of the stairwell, making the air breathable, but my legs did not want to move. I didn’t know how I was going to get to my car, or what I would do after that. A sudden wave of nausea almost made me slide down the final six steps.

On the ground floor, I fell against the door and went out into the sunlight. The heat of the day was raw against my burns. I didn’t look down at them, though. I didn’t want to see how bad they were, because then the pain would hit me like a tidal wave.

Not that it wasn’t already coming on. I tried to breathe slowly to control the pain, but every breath caught in my throat. I circled around the back of the building, leaning on parked cars while I passed between them. A firefighter yelled at me to get out of there, and a slender black woman in gray pinstripes rushed by me with car keys in her hand.

Suddenly, Bud was beside me. “Hey there, Ray.”

I staggered away from him and fell against the hood of a Lumina. “Damn,” I said, my voice slurred. “Scared me. Give me a hand, Bud.”

He laughed. Summer was standing beside him. She never laughed. Neither moved to help me. “You said you were going to save us, Ray.” There was a touch of contempt in her voice. “How you gonna manage that?”

I didn’t have the energy to spar with them. I was helpless, and that made me furious. “Vanish!” I shouted. The word made me choke. “VANISH!”

Summer sneered at me. Bud smirked. Both of them turned their backs and walked away.

I didn’t care, because my anger had given me focus and I’d suddenly remembered what I’d done with my spell.

I’d thrown my ghost knife but hadn’t called it back, not through those flames. It should have passed through the wall, but I didn’t know how far it could go. I staggered toward the far end of the building—the south? I was all turned around—determined that I would not leave a magic spell lying around for anyone to find. I had to get it back.

At the far side of the building was a narrow alley with a high fence. The chain-link fence had plastic slats threaded through it, so I couldn’t see what was on the other side. The pain grew stronger, stealing my life force away.

There was not very much trash in the passageway, but I didn’t see my ghost knife anywhere. The only places left to go were back into the building and out to the front, where the fire trucks had gathered.

I didn’t need to do that. I closed my eyes and reached for my ghost knife. It was nearby—still inside the building and above me, and as I focused on it, I felt myself wavering. My body wanted to shut down, and I was barely able to feel my spell and call it to me. The world seemed to be growing dark, but I did see the ghost knife slice through the wall to land in my open palm.

I slapped it against my chest and fell against the side of the building. Whatever it was and whatever it wanted, it was part of me, and I was glad to have it close. I slid it into the back pocket of my pants, miraculously hitting the target on my first try.

I was about to fall when I felt a pair of hands grab me roughly. Damn, I had been caught by one of the