The Fireman: A Novel Part 10

"Oi!" said the Fireman. "Why are you running about with a gun? Someone could get hurt. I hope you have the safety on."

Jakob made a sound, a little cry of surprise that was also like a sharp, indrawn breath, and turned, lifting the revolver. The Fireman brought the halligan down, that long rusty bar, with tools bristling from either end. It whistled in the air and struck the barrel of the gun with a clang. The pistol dropped and thudded to the ground and went off and the flash lit the forest.

"No, I guess not," said the Fireman.

"Who the f.u.c.k are you?" Jakob asked. "You with Harper?"

The Fireman c.o.c.ked his head to one side and seemed to consider this for a moment, his eyes puzzled. Then his face brightened, and he opened his mouth in a generous, toothy grin.

"Yes, I suppose I am," he said, and rocked back on his heels, as if this were something he had only just realized and found delightful. It came to Harper, then, that he was crazy-as crazy as Jakob. "Harper. Like Harper Lee, I imagine. I only knew her as Nurse Grayson. Harper. Wonderful name." He cleared his throat and added, "I suppose I'm also the man telling you to sod off. These woods don't belong to you."

"Who the f.u.c.k do you think they belong to?" Jakob asked.

"Me," said the Fireman. "I f.u.c.king think they f.u.c.king belong the f.u.c.k to me. I can swear, too, mate. I'm English. We swear without fear. The C-word? We say that too: c.u.n.t c.u.n.t c.u.n.ty c.u.n.t c.u.n.tc.u.n.t." Without dropping the grin he said, "Go on, now. Get lost, you loudmouthed c.u.n.t."

Jakob stared at the Fireman warily, seemed genuinely not to know what to say or what to do. Then he turned and bent over, reaching for his gun.

The Fireman lashed out with the halligan, using it like a polo stick, striking the pistol and knocking it away into the ferns. Jakob did not hesitate, but pivoted and threw himself at the thin, wiry Englishman. The Fireman lifted the halligan, bringing it up between them, but then Jakob had his hands on it, and they were wrestling over it, and Jakob was the stronger man.

Stronger, and he had better balance . . . that sense of balance that carried him across tightropes and allowed him to perch comfortably on a unicycle. He set his feet and twisted at the waist, lifting the Fireman right off the ground, swinging him half a foot through the air and slamming him into the trunk of the very oak Harper sat in.

Harper felt the force of the impact shake the tree branch beneath her, felt the whole tree shudder.

Jakob pulled the bar back a few inches and slammed the Fireman into the tree again. The Fireman grunted, and all the air shot out of him, a whistling exhalation through his nostrils.

"You motherf.u.c.ker," Jakob was saying, almost chanting. "I'll kill you, motherf.u.c.ker, I'll kill you, and I'll kill her, and I'll-" His voice trailed off; he had run out of people to kill.

He slammed the Fireman into the tree again, and the Fireman's helmet cracked loudly against the trunk. Harper flinched and caught a shout in her throat. Allie, though, had her hand on her knee, and she squeezed it.

"Watch," she whispered. She had pulled the mask down around her neck, and Harper saw a beauty: chocolate eyes that glittered with hilarity, tomboy freckles, and delicate features that seemed even sharper and clearer because her head was shaved smooth, to better show the hollows of her temples and her fine bones. "Look at his hand."

And Harper saw that the Fireman's bare left hand was boiling with gray smoke. The left hand had let go of the halligan bar and dropped to the Fireman's side. Harper flashed to a memory-the Fireman wrestling with Albert in the hallway off the emergency room, and trying to yank his glove off with his teeth.

Jakob pulled back on the halligan bar, meaning to drive the Fireman into the tree trunk again. But at that moment the Fireman reached over the bar and put his hand on Jakob's throat, and fire belched from his palm.

That flame was as blue as a blowtorch. The Fireman's hand wore a glove of radiant fire. The blaze roared like a rising wind and Jakob screamed and let go of the halligan and fell away. He screamed again, grabbing at his blackened throat. His feet got tangled and he went straight down on his a.s.s and then he sprang up once more and ran, heaving himself blindly through the branches and brush.

The Fireman watched him go, his left hand a torch. Then he opened his filthy yellow turnout jacket, put his burning hand under it, and clapped the jacket shut, trapping his hand between the coat and his shirt.

He opened the jacket and shut it and opened it again, beating at his hand calmly-he looked rather like a child trying to use his armpit to make farts-and the third time he opened the jacket, the flame had gone out and the hand was spewing filthy black smoke. He waved the hand in the air, letting the smoke boil off it. In the distance, Harper could hear branches snapping and brush crackling, the sound of Jakob running away. In another moment the woods were quiet except for the alien chirp of night insects.

The Fireman held up his left hand, drew a deep breath, and blew away the last of the smoke. His palm was sketched with Dragonscale. Those fine, delicate black lines were ashed over now, the surface snow white, with a few sparks nested here and there, glowing faintly. The rest of the skin covering his hand was-fine. Clean and healthy and pink and impossibly unburnt.

Allie said, "I love it when he does that, but his best trick is when he makes a phoenix. It's better than fireworks."

"True enough!" said the Fireman, turning his head and grinning cheekily up at them. "I put the Fifth of November and the Fourth of July to shame. Who needs Roman candles when you've got me?"

BOOK TWO.

LET YOUR DIM LIGHT SHINE.

1.

Allie was first out of the tree, grabbing the branch and swinging to the ground. Harper meant to go down by way of the rudimentary ladder nailed into the trunk, but as soon as she slid off the branch she had been sitting on, she dropped.

The Fireman was there to break her fall. He didn't exactly catch her. He just happened to be below her when she went down. She flattened him under her and they hit the dirt together. The back of her head smashed him in the nose. Her right heel bounced off the ground. The pain that shot through her ankle was exquisite.

They groaned in each other's arms, like lovers.

"f.u.c.k," she said. "f.u.c.k f.u.c.k f.u.c.k."

"Is that the best you can do?" the Fireman asked. He was holding his nose and blinking back tears. "Just a lot of 'f.u.c.k f.u.c.k f.u.c.k' over and over again? Can't you expand your range a little? G.o.dd.a.m.n b.l.o.o.d.y a.r.s.efoam. Daddy drilling Mommy on the kitchen table. That sort of thing. Americans curse without any imagination at all."

Harper sat up, her shoulders. .h.i.tching with her first sobs. Her legs were trembling and her ankle was broken and Jakob had nearly killed her, had wanted to kill her, and people were shooting guns and bursting into flame and she had fallen out of a tree, and the baby, the baby, and she couldn't help herself. The Fireman sat up next to her and put an arm around her and she rested her head on the slippery shoulder of his jacket.

"There, there," he said.

And he held her for a bit, while she had a good, unglamorous cry.

When her sobs had subsided to hiccups he said, "Let's get you up. We should be going. We don't know what your deranged ex-husband might be up to. I wouldn't put it past him to call a Quarantine Patrol."

"He's not my ex. We're not divorced."

"You are now. By the power vested in me."

"What power vested in you?"

"You know how captains of ships can marry people? Little-known fact, firemen can divorce people as well. Come on, up with you."

The Fireman encircled her waist with his left arm and hoisted her to her feet. The hand on her hip was still warm, like fresh bread from the oven.

"You set your hand on fire," she said. "How did you do that?"

On the face of it, she already knew the answer. He had Dragonscale, same as her. His hand was still uncovered and she could see a black-and-gold scrawl tracing the lines of his palm, running in a coil around and around his wrist. A fine gray smoke trickled from the thicker lines.

She had seen at least a hundred people with Dragonscale ignite-ignite and begin to scream, blue fire racing over them, as if they were painted in kerosene, their hair erupting in a flash. It was not something anyone wanted or could do to themselves, and when it happened it was not controlled and it always ended in death.

But the Fireman had consciously lit himself up. And only part of himself, just his hand. Then he had calmly put himself back out again. And somehow he had not been hurt.

"I thought about offering a cla.s.s once," the Fireman said. "But I couldn't figure out what I was teaching. Advanced Pyromancy? Spontaneous Combustion for Dummies? Arson 101? Besides, it's hard to get people to sign up for a course when failing a test means burning alive."

"That's a lie," Allie said. "He won't teach you. He won't teach anyone. Liar, liar, pants on fire."

"No, not tonight, Allie. This is my favorite pair of dungarees and I can't afford to burn them up just because you want me to show off."

"You've been spying on me," Harper said.

The Fireman glanced up into the branches of the oak, where she had been perched only a moment before. "There's an excellent view of your bedroom from up there. Isn't it odd, how people with something to hide will pull the curtains at the front of the house, but never think to cover the windows out back."

"You spend a lot of time wandering around in your underwear, reading What to Expect When You're Expecting," Allie said. "Don't worry. He never peeped through your windows at you while you were getting dressed. Maybe I did once or twice, but not him. 'E's a proper English gen'lem'n is wot he is." Allie's faux English accent was at least as good as d.i.c.k Van d.y.k.e's in Mary Poppins. If Harper had been a sixteen-year-old boy, she would've been mad for her. You could just tell she was the best kind of trouble.

"Why?" Harper asked the Fireman. "Why spy on me?"

"Allie," the Fireman said, as if he had not heard Harper's question. "Run on ahead to camp. Bring your grandfather and Ben Patchett. Oh, and find Renee. Tell Renee we have acquired her favorite nurse. She'll be so pleased."

Then Allie was gone, springing into leaves in a way that made Harper think of Peter Pan's shadow zinging around Wendy's bedroom. Harper had a head crammed full of children's books and could be quite compulsive about a.s.signing people storybook roles.

When the girl was gone, the Fireman said, "Just as well to have you to myself for a moment, Nurse Grayson. I'd trust Allie Storey with my life, but there are some things I'd rather not say in front of her. Do you know the summer camp at the end of Little Harbor Road?"

"Camp Wyndham," Harper said. "Sure."

Dead leaves crunched underfoot and their smell sugared the air with autumn's perfume.

"That's where we're headed. There's a fellow there, Tom Storey, Allie's grandfather. They call him Father Storey. Once upon a time Tom was the program director at the camp. Now he has the place opened up as a shelter for folk with Dragonscale. He's got more than a hundred people hiding there, and they've banged together a decent little society. There's three meals a day-for now, anyway. I don't know how much longer that will last. There's no electric power, but they've got working showers if you can stand being pelted by ice water. They've got a school, and a kind of junior police force called the Lookouts, to keep watch for Quarantine Patrols and Cremation Crews. That's mostly teenagers-the Lookouts. Allie and her friends. Gives them something to do. They have all the religion you could possibly want, too. In some ways it isn't like any religion that's ever come before and in other ways, well. Fundamentalists are much the same wherever you go. That's one of the things I wanted to forewarn you about, while Allie ran on ahead. She's even more devout than most, and that's saying quite a lot."

There was a rending crack, a sliding, reverberating crash that shook the forest floor and caused Harper's pulse to leap. She stared back through the woods in the direction they had come from. She couldn't imagine what could possibly have made such an enormous, shattering noise.

The Fireman cast a brief, considering glance over his shoulder, then took her arm and began to move her along again, a little more briskly now. He continued as if there had been no interruption at all.

"You have to understand that most of the camp is between your age and Allie's. There are a few oldsters, but a lot more who ought to still be in school. Most of them have lost family, seen the people they love burn to death in front of them. They were in shock when they found their way to camp, refugees, deranged by grief, and just waiting around to burst into flame themselves. Then Father Storey and his daughter Carol-Allie's aunt-taught them they don't have to die. They've offered them hope when they had none and a very concrete form of salvation."

Harper slowed, in part to rest her sore ankle, in part to absorb what he was saying.

"What do you mean, they're teaching people they don't have to die? No one can teach someone with Dragonscale not to die. That's impossible. If there was a treatment, some pill-"

"You aren't required to swallow anything," the Fireman said. "Not even their faith. Remember that, Nurse Grayson."

"If there was anything that could prevent the Dragonscale from killing people, the government would know by now. If there was something that worked, really worked, something that could extend the lives of millions of sick people-"

"-people with a lethal and contagious spore on their skin? Nurse Grayson, no one wants us extending our lives. Nothing could be less desirable. Shortening them-that's what would best serve the public good. At least in the minds of the healthy population. One thing we know about people with Dragonscale: they don't burst into flame if you shoot them in the head. You don't have to worry about a corpse infecting you or your children . . . or starting a conflagration that might take out a city block." She opened her mouth to protest and he squeezed her shoulder. "There'll be time to argue this point later. Although I warn you, it's been argued before, most notably by poor Harold Cross. I feel his case largely settles the matter."

"Harold Cross?"

He shook his head. "Leave it for now. I only want you to understand that Tom and Carol have given these people more than food or shelter or even a way to suppress their illness. They've given them belief . . . in each other, in the future, and in the power they share as a flock. A flock isn't such a bad thing if you belong, but a few hundred starlings will tear an unlucky martin to feathers if it crosses their path. I think Camp Wyndham could be a very unfriendly place for an apostate. Tom, he's tolerant enough. He's your inclusive, modern, thoughtful religious type, an ethics professor by trade. But his daughter, Allie's aunt: she's barely more than a kid herself, and most of the other kids have made a kind of cult around her. She sings the songs, after all. You want to stay on her good side. She's kind enough, Carol is. Means well. But if she doesn't love you, then she's afraid of you, and she's dangerous when she's afraid. I am uneasy in my mind about what might happen if Carol ever felt seriously threatened."

"I'm not going to threaten anyone," Harper said.

He smiled. "No. You don't strike me as the type to make trouble, but to make peace. I still haven't forgotten the first time you crossed my path, Nurse Grayson. You saved his life, you know. Nick. And you saved my skull, while you were at it. I seem to remember it was just about to be kicked in when you intervened. I owe you."

"Not anymore," Harper said.

Ahead of them, in the dark, branches rustled and were pushed aside. A modest a.s.sembly emerged, Allie leading the way. The girl was breathing hard and had a pretty flush of color on her delicate features.

"What happened, John?" asked a man standing directly behind her. His voice was low and melodious and even before she saw Tom Storey's face, Harper liked him. At first, she could make out little more than his gold-rimmed spectacles flashing in the darkness. "Who do we have here?"

"Someone useful," the Fireman said, only now she knew his name: John. "A nurse, a Miss Grayson. Can you take her the rest of the way? I'm no doctor, but I think she fractured her ankle. If you'll help her along to the infirmary, I'd like to go back and collect her things while there's still time. My guess is there'll soon be police and a Quarantine Patrol swarming her place."

"Gee, can I help?" said one of the other members of the greeting party. He stepped forward, slipping easily between the Fireman and Harper, and put his arm around her waist. Harper slung hers over his shoulders. He was a big man, maybe quarter of a century older than Harper, with sloping shoulders and pale silver hair beginning to thin up top. Harper thought of an aged and well-loved Paddington Bear. "Ben Patchett," he said. "Glad to meet you, ma'am."

There was a woman with them, too, short, squashy, her silver hair braided into cornrows. She smiled tentatively, perhaps unsure Harper would remember her. Of course there was no chance at all Harper could've forgotten the woman who fled Portsmouth Hospital, shimmering as brightly as a flare and just as sure to explode.

"Renee Gilmonton," Harper said. "I thought you ran away to die somewhere."

"That's what I thought, too. Father Storey had other ideas." Renee put an arm under Harper's armpits, helping to support her from the other side. "You took such good care of me for so long, Nurse Grayson. What a pleasure to have a chance to tend to you for a bit."

"How'd you bust your ankle?" Father Storey asked, lifting his chin so the dim light flashed on the lenses of his spectacles, and for the first time Harper could see his features, his long, skinny, deeply lined face and silver beard, and she thought: Dumbledore. The beard was actually less Dumbledore, more Hemingway, but the eyes behind the lenses of his gla.s.ses were a brilliant shade of blue that naturally suggested a man who could cast runes and speak to trees.

Harper found it hard to reply, didn't know yet how to speak of Jakob and what he had tried to do to her.

The Fireman seemed to see in a glance how the question defeated her, and answered himself. "Her husband came for her with a gun. I chased him off. That's all. Time is short, Tom."

"Isn't it always?" Father Storey replied.

The Fireman started to turn away-then pivoted back and pressed something into Harper's hand. "Oh, you dropped this, Nurse. Do keep it on you. If you ever need me again, just blow." It was her pennywhistle. She had dropped it running from Jakob and forgotten all about it, and was absurdly grateful to have it returned.

"He doesn't slip everyone his slide whistle of love," Allie said. "You're in."

"Mind out of the gutter, Allie," the Fireman said. "What would your mother have said?"

"Something dirtier," Allie said. "Come on, let's go get the nurse's gear."

Allie dropped the Captain America mask back over her face and bounded into the trees. The Fireman cursed under his breath and began to hurry after her, using that great iron pole of his to swat aside the underbrush.

"Allie!" Father Storey cried. "Allie, please! Come back!"

But she was already gone.

"That girl has no business mixing herself up in John's work," said Ben Patchett.

"Try and stop her," Renee said.

"The Fireman-John-he lit himself on fire," Harper said. "His whole hand burst into flame. How'd he do that?"