Anna Strong - Retribution Part 14

I can't stay here much longer.

"Ortiz, where are you?" I scream it until my throat is raw.

Over and over. Then, I stop, listen.

Tell me where you are. Please.

The only sound that fills my ears is the crackle of the flame. The only thing I see is the h.e.l.l of fire bearing down.

Then- A m.u.f.fled cry.

Tell me where you are. I scream it again like a crazy person.

There's no answer. In the corner, near the stairs, a figure suddenly rises.

Ortiz pulls himself up, shaking his head, confused, immobile. He looks across the room.

Here, I'm yelling. Over here.

I take a step toward him but there's a wall of flame between us. I can't jump it and I can't go through it.

Ortiz-can you find a way around?

He is looking right at me now. He sees me. He understands.

His eyes sweep the room. He's surrounded by flame.

I don't know what to do.

Ortiz' eyes seek mine. There's a rush of conflicting emotion-fear, regret, acceptance. He holds up a hand. Be sure Brooke is all right.

Tell her I loved her.

No. You can't give up. Look around.

His gaze remains on me. Help Williams. He'll need you now.

No. Find a way out. Look.

But as I speak the words, the flames erupt around him in a tornado of wind and noise. In one moment, he's there, watching me, smiling.

In the next, his body bursts into flame. It ignites in a single, sparkling burst and is suspended a moment in the air, like an exploding star.

I don't want to watch.

I can't look away.

Ortiz dissolves into flickering embers and pinp.r.i.c.ks of white light that rain down like the tears of an avenging angel.

And Ortiz is gone.

CHAPTER 28.

"NO-"I'M STILL YELLING EVEN THOUGH IT'S USELESS. Ortiz is gone.

I'm powerless to move. I can't drag my eyes off the spot where a moment ago, Ortiz stood looking at me. All that 's left is a wisp of vapor and a quick, bright discharge of light. Like a dying sparkler.

No.

Anna, are you in there?

A voice from outside. A voice that keeps calling my name. Urgently. Unrelentingly.

Anna, where are you? It breaks through the miasma of my despair and brings me back.

The heat on my skin, the roar of the flames, the acrid smell of-what? My shoes. I look down and realize what I'm smelling is the soles of my shoes. If I don't get out, I'll be joining Ortiz in whatever afterlife awaits the vampire.

I'm not ready to find out what that is.

The flames have traveled on a straight path from the stairs to the gaping hole I tore in the bay.

Have I waited too long?

Panic raises bile in my throat.

A sound.

To the left.

Someone is pounding against the metal of the adjoining bay. Doing what I did just a little while ago to get inside this one.

I race over. Use my fists to pound, too, until the metal gives way. There's no seam here, I gouge into the metal with my fingers, using nails and finally teeth to tear a hole. With my hands, I yank at the hole, enlarge it, make it big enough to gain purchase with my hands. At last, I can rip back the steel fabric. It's not easy. Blood from lacerated palms makes my grip slip. I ignore it and the pain. Keep working until strong hands grab mine and pull me outside.

The hands drag me away from the building, across the parking lot.

I don't realize my eyes are squeezed shut until they open and I'm staring up at sky.

A face peers down.

Are you all right?

My savior is a woman with a kindly middle-aged face.

I attempt to sit up. When my palms press against the asphalt, pain in lightning sharp daggers races up my arms. I look down to see great jagged cuts like macabre lifelines scoring the flesh. My nails are torn to the quick.

My back hurts from being dragged, my left arm throbs, my eyes still stream from the smoke.

I glance back at the building, fully engulfed, smoke blocks the sun, staining the sky like angry storm clouds.

I see Ortiz-standing in front of me one moment, gone the next. His face, calm, accepting, will haunt me for a long time.

The cool night air on my skin, the smell of asphalt and burned rubber, the roar of the flames.

I'm alive.

Suddenly, I've never felt better.

CHAPTER 29.

THE WOMAN WHO DRAGGED ME OUT IS KNEELING beside me, her face level with mine. She has long hair, drawn back from her face, light brown dusted with gray. Her eyes are deep blue and sparkle with an inner radiance. She projects great kindness.

She's a vampire.

I've never met a vampire before who wasn't young-or at least young-looking.

Before I can block that thought, she laughs.

Not all of us are made at a young age. I was, as you see, in my fifties. In reality, not a bad age to become vampire. There's a certain wisdom that comes with middle age.

Wisdom is not something Anna knows much about.

Williams' voice interjects itself in our conversation. He walks up from behind and when I turn, I see several men helping the injured vampires. They're covering them with blankets and leading them to vans parked in a semicircle in the back of the parking lot. They 're all human. You were quick, I say. How did you arrange it?

There is a safe house nearby. I called, they mobilized.

Will the women be all right?

Williams nods. The humans will see to their needs. We can't remove the collars until they're stronger.

I shake my head, shuddering. What are those things? I've never seen anything like it. Just the thought of how I found them makes me tremble. She was bleeding them.

I've seen it before, Williams replies. In pictures. The collars were used by us, by ancient vampires, to bleed humans. Someone has a long memory and a great hate to use them now against us.

Not someone. Belinda Burke. The witch.

Williams is looking around. You said Ortiz was here. Where is he?

His question unleashes a rush of alarm. He doesn't know. I don't know how to tell him.

I force myself to my feet, heart hammering, head swimming in anxiety.

Williams feels it. He takes a step closer. "Where is Ortiz?"

The woman with us senses my agitation. She puts a hand on my shoulder. "Maybe you should go with the others. You need to rest."

I push her gently away. "No. You go see to them. I have to speak with Williams."

She looks reluctant to leave us.

"It's all right," I say. "We'll be all right."

She moves off, looking back once, then takes the elbow of a young female who is stumbling toward the van. I watch as they walk away.

"Ortiz is gone."

I don't know how else to say it.

Williams expression stills, freezes into blankness.

"Gone? You mean he's left already?"

I shake my head. "He was inside."

Awareness blooms in Williams' eyes. A muscle quivers at the corner of his jaw. His thoughts draw inward, shutting me out.

Then I feel it. Feel the rage.

It hits with the intensity of a blast furnace.

I accept it. I understand it.

He and Ortiz were close. I expect Williams to lash out and since I'm the likely target, I brace myself.

Williams doesn't look at me. He turns away, head bowed. I feel his conflicted emotions as powerfully as if they were my own. Misery, like physical pain-a knife twisting and turning inside. The first swell of anger giving way to raw grief, a sense of deep loss, a terrible bitterness.

I was prepared for him to strike out but he's turned it inward. Somehow, that makes it worse. If he screamed or attacked me or slammed his fist into a wall, I'd know how to react. This way he's unreachable. There's nothing I can do or say. His desolation and despair wrap him in a coc.o.o.n of anguish.

I reach out a hand but stop short of touching him. "I'm sorry."

He barks a short, desperate laugh. "Sorry? You could have saved him."

"I couldn't. The flames were everywhere. I didn't know he was inside until it was too late."

His expression shifts, turns his eyes cold, his mouth into a thin, hard line. "You are such an ignorant b.i.t.c.h. You don't know your power.

You could have saved him. If you had taken one minute from your precious, insignificant human life to learn, Ortiz would be alive."