Watch Me Burn: The December People, Book Two (23 page)

“What…the…fuck?” Xavier spluttered.

“We don’t have much time. Go wake up Emmy and get out of the house. I’ll get Mom and Dad.” He had to push against a hard wall of silence to get the words out. Something muffled all the sounds in the house. A silencing spell, maybe. He hoped Xavier could actually hear him.

The room filled with orange light. And Patrick could see Xavier’s eyes bathed in the firelight, coming into full focus as he realized what had happened.
Shit.
Time had run out. Patrick tensed up, waiting for an explosion, but none came. The fire stayed outside the window, or
on
the window.

Being kicked in the stomach and having his room set on fire jolted Xavier awake. Without a word, he ran out of the room, and Patrick hoped he followed his instructions.

Patrick followed him out and headed to his parents’ bedroom. Smoke had already filled the house, but the smoke alarm hadn’t gone off yet. He thought it wouldn’t, or at least, they wouldn’t hear it. The silencing spell would take care of that.

Flickering yellow light bathed his parents’ bedroom too. From what he could tell, fire encircled the house, as if someone drenched the outside in gasoline and lit a match. Dad was a much lighter sleeper than Xavier, and Patrick’s presence in the room was enough to wake him. Patrick pointed to the window. Dad muttered and Patrick couldn’t tell if the spell made it so he couldn’t understand him, or if Dad babbled incoherently due to fear. But Patrick had already used all the spare freak-out time for himself.

“Help me with Mom,” Patrick commanded.

Mom could walk, but she couldn’t walk fast. Dad didn’t take the time to wake her. He pulled her out of bed and into a standing position. Mom woke with a gasp as Dad pressed her into Patrick’s arms.

“Help her out,” Dad said. His voiced sounded odd, as if they had a bad cell phone connection. Dad made a dash to leave and Patrick grabbed his arm.

“They’re already outside. We’re last.” Patrick hoped it was true, and that Dad could understand him.

Patrick thought he could make out a confused squint on Dad’s face, perhaps noticing how strange Patrick might have sounded.

When they left the bedroom, Patrick saw that the fire had made it into the kitchen. The drapes around the kitchen window had lit up, and threatened to serve as kindling for the rest of the room. The same drapes hung right over Emmy’s bed, and he hoped again Xavier had come through.

Patrick was grateful—for the first time—their house was small. The walk to the front door felt endless, but it must have taken seconds. Mom pointed toward Emmy’s room, but Patrick and Dad pulled her out of the house anyway, not taking the time to explain.

The fresh air outside felt hot and suffocating, but still a relief. And to his greater relief, Patrick felt Emmy careening into them like a cannonball before he could blink away the burning smoke. Xavier stood on the sidewalk.

As Patrick coughed and tried to catch his breath, he looked out at the street. Whoever had done this had already made their getaway. He thought he might see some brake lights disappear several blocks down. Even if he wanted to follow, the keys sat inside the burning house.

Patrick looked at the street while everyone else looked at the house. As Patrick had guessed, gasoline-fueled flames licked up the sides of the building at every angle. The flames were crawling inside through the windows like eager intruders. Their dry, dead lawn had caught too, and Patrick thought he saw the remnants of something more well-planned than spare embers catching the straw-like grass. A large triangle, like the one on Julie’s bracelet, had been drawn in the lawn with gasoline.

Magic had nothing to do with the silence that followed. Patrick could imagine everyone felt what he felt. Shock, gradually melting into a hot, black rage. Rage too deep and pure to require shouting or cursing or crying. Someone had tried to burn them alive.

avid knew Amanda must be really sick, because she fell asleep at the police station. David thought he would never sleep again, nor would his kids. They popped around him, from chair to chair, to the vending machine, to the bathroom, to the water fountain, pop, pop, pop. They radiated rage and frustration, and had nowhere to direct it. David could guess that, because he felt that way too.

A wizard reporting a crime to a Mundane detective was frustrating. David had already learned this when Evangeline went missing. The detectives assigned to Evangeline’s case came to talk with him about the arson, presuming there had to some relation.

A forty-something woman with red hair and a pretty, but tired, face was the lead detective on Evangeline’s case and she sat with David alone in an interrogation room.

“Can you think of anyone who wishes you harm?” she asked.

“John Prescott,” David said. He realized immediately that he shouldn’t have voiced his suspicions aloud. He was just too damn tired to talk in circles with this woman. Besides, magic or no magic, Mundanes could understand arson. Maybe she could find some real, non-magical evidence against him.

“Why?”

“He doesn’t like my family.”

“Why? According to you both, and all the evidence we have seen, the two of you have never met, nor do you have any connection to each other whatsoever. Are you telling me now that you have met John Prescott?”

“No. Not that I recall.”

“Then why do you believe he wishes you harm?”

David didn’t answer. He glared at her, again wishing he had kept his mouth shut. The Mundane police had never managed to help him an ounce, and he didn’t know why he thought things might be different now. He felt dark magic radiating from him and the detective glared back at him. She must feel something. If anything, his magic must cause her to either fear or hate him, even if she didn’t know why. If she “followed her gut” as they did on the T.V. shows, she’d investigate him next. He wanted to rein in the ambient evil that surrounded him, but he felt too angry, tired, and sad. The detective was trying her best, and he didn’t wish to curse her consciously or subconsciously.

“Mr. Vandergraff,” she continued. “I’ve been doing this for long enough to know things aren’t always the way they seem. But I’ve also been doing this long enough to know in most cases, things are exactly as they seem.”

“And how do things seem to you?”

She didn’t answer. He could read her well. Something about all of this seemed wrong to her, but she didn’t know what and she hated that. This case kept her up at night, nagging at her. David could also sense she was smart. Not the reactionary type. Even if David radiated evil and John Prescott radiated good, she knew she was missing something. She wanted facts. Something tangible. David wished he could give it to her. But she wouldn’t believe the truth if he told her every last detail.

“You want to know how things seem to me?” she asked. “I think you’re telling me only part of the story. I’ll ask you again, why do you suspect John Prescott of setting your house on fire?”

“I guess I have no reason. It doesn’t matter. Investigate him. Don’t investigate him. You won’t find anything.”

“I’m trying to help you, Mr. Vandergraff.”

“I know you are.”

“I can’t do that if you’re not honest with me.”

“Is this an interrogation? I thought I was the victim.”

“If you’re the victim, then stop obstructing my investigation. All, you’re doing is making it harder for me to find your daughter and catch the people who tried to hurt you and your family. I can’t imagine why you would want to do that.”

“I told you. John Prescott. Or someone he is associated with. I told you exactly who did it. I don’t know how I can be more helpful than that. Now, I’m done talking. I need to take my wife somewhere she can rest. And then I need to figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to do now.”

“Do you have any family you can stay with, or should I have Victim’s Services set you up with temporary housing?”

David paused. “The temporary housing will be fine. Thank you.”

“When you decide you want to help me find your daughter, give me a call.”

“Where do they live?” Xavier asked. “What was it, Candy Land?”

Patrick figured that nearly getting burned alive had been enough to shake Xavier back to life. He had the look of someone who had woken from a coma to find the hospital burning around him.

While they waited for Dad to finish talking to the police, everything was opposite. Xavier paced and talked in the waiting area, planning a counter attack, while Emmy sat quietly in a plastic chair, watching Xavier’s feet.

“Sugar Land,” Patrick said. “It’s called Sugar Land.”

“Why do you think it’s the Prescotts?” Emmy asked quietly. Patrick almost believed someone had cast a spell on them and they’d switched bodies.

Xavier laughed, and Patrick shuddered. He rarely laughed, and it sounded wrong, especially now.

“Who else?” Xavier asked. “A week after Evie disappears, this happens? It’s because they know about us now.”

Emmy had her arms crossed in front of her and cradled one with the other.

“What are you hiding? Did you hurt yourself?” Patrick asked.

She looked at him as if he had accused her of something. She looked small.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Show me.”

With her eyes averted, she held out the arm she had cradled. She had covered a blistery pink burn mark on her forearm.

“Ouch,” Patrick said. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“It’s no big deal. I got hit with an ember.”

Emmy pulled her arm to herself again. Patrick thought her behavior was strange. Why did she hide an injury from the fire they all knew about? He had the strangest sensation—a vision, but more delicate. He could sense a secret, like a rabbit’s cottontail he glimpsed for a moment before it ran back into the brush. He could go after it if he wanted to. He could hunt it down. He didn’t know how, but he had the urge to grab her burned arm, as if when he touched her, he would know her secret.

But he resisted. He might want to know what she hid, but he wouldn’t draw it out in front of Xavier. Xavier animated and Emmy meek was not just weird, it terrified him. He had no idea what either of them might do.

“Why would the Prescotts want to kill us?” Emmy asked, looking to Patrick for the answer.