Messenger of Fear (Messenger of Fear 1)

“No, stop it! Stop it! Oh, God, stop it!”

That was not just Derek crying for mercy but me as well—this could not happen, this could not go on. Yes, Derek had caused a death, yes, he had ruined Manolo’s life as well, but this was impossible, this was not tolerable. My insides were twisting, twisting as Derek screamed now, screamed, no longer able to plead, no longer able to form words, for sheer terror owned him now.

His eyes bulged, his chest heaved, and he screamed again and again as both wraiths raised high their arms and flame grew from the ends of their sleeves.

“Messenger! No! No! No!” I cried, and I rushed at him, to beat at him with my fists, but I found I could not get near him.

Oriax was singing still, an eerily pretty voice carrying the ancient tune, but with words from no language I had ever heard before. There was a dark malice in the very sound of those words, an evil that did not rely on meaning but could be heard in the few vowels and the thick, clotted consonants.

The wraiths lowered their flaming arms, and bright yellow fire flowed like a liquid to touch the piled wood. The flames were bright in the pool of iniquitous darkness and I prayed while sightless men and women and children in the bleachers sat immobile.

I wish that I could have turned away. I wish that what came next never imprinted itself on my memory. I did not want, do not want, to know what fire does to a human body.

There was little smoke at first, though the burning varnish made an acrid smell. For the first few seconds Derek seemed amazingly unharmed. But then the hair on his legs singed and curled and fell away. The flesh of his legs reddened. His wrestling uniform shorts billowed out as hot air made balloons of them, and then, suddenly, they caught fire, curling up from the hem.

Bare flesh went from the red of a sunburn to something purplish and then black as the fat beneath the skin sizzled and popped like eggs on a too-hot grill. The skin burst open, like time-lapse video of rotting fruit. There was a nightmarish hissing, whistling sound as superheated gasses escaped. Steam rose from flesh turned molten, flesh that ran down like rivulets of lava.

And yet Derek lived.

He had been screaming all along, but there is a difference between the scream of terror and the scream of agony. The raw sounds tearing Derek’s throats were animal noises, not human. He bleated like a goat. He squealed like a pig. His mouth drew in air that instantly seared his throat and caused his lungs to begin filling with mucous, so that what were roars and screams and shrieks became grunts, mindless, choked animal grunts.

Derek’s hair caught fire and for a moment his head was wreathed in smoke. I saw his leg bones were appearing as the muscle and fat melted away, white bone at first, then blackened, as his skin was blackened.

And still he lived. His body jerked frantically, spasms so powerful I wondered that his body did not tear itself apart.

“That’s enough,” I said through gritted teeth. “That’s enough! Enough! Enough! Enough!”

But it did not end. Derek was a torch. It was no longer a simple wood fire; it was a fire of shreds of clothing, hair, and human grease. Flesh was melting away, revealing the structure of bone beneath.

And now more than ever: the smell. The contents of his stomach and bowels burned and stank like a sewage treatment plant. The meat of him burned and smelled like an outdoor barbecue.

It was the smell, the realization that with each inhalation I was drawing the atoms of Derek’s body into my nose, the stink of human waste blended with a smell that to my horror made my stomach rumble hungrily, that sent me over the edge.

At the end Derek’s eyes boiled in their sockets and, mercifully, I lost consciousness.

19

WHEN I OPENED MY EYES AGAIN, I WAS ON THE floor, sitting in a heap, collapsed as if my spine had been removed. My first conscious sensation was smell. Derek smelled like burned hamburger.

Then, all at once, the charred wood was made whole. All at once it was all back where it belonged, neatly covering the floor.

There was no stake. There was no more smell of charring flesh except in memory. The pool of darkness dissipated.

Derek lay crumpled on the floor. There was no mark of the flames upon him. His silly wrestling uniform was dark with sweat, but not with smoke or the stain of rendered fat. His hair was not curled from singing. His eyes had not liquefied and sizzled down his cheeks.

He breathed.

He lived.

Oriax was still with us. She had ended her song.

Messenger had removed the hood from his head, and what he had done with it, I could not say.

“You are alive and unhurt,” Messenger said. “Your penance is complete. The imbalance has been repaired. You are free to go.”

I could only stare in disbelief. Unhurt? He had been burned alive. Or so it had seemed to me, and very definitely so it had seemed to Derek. This was justice? This atrocity?

The three of us waited, eyes all on Derek, ears straining to hear if he had any response.