Burnt Offerings (Vampire Hunter 7)

He did look up then. "I made sure no one was injured."

"You're a pyrokinetic," I said.

He frowned. "I was given a gift from God. It was the first sign of his favor to return to me. Before, I think I feared the Holy Fire. Feared it would destroy me. But I do not fear my own destruction now. She wishes me to use God's gifts for evil use. She wanted me to burn down your stadium with all the people inside tonight."

I said, "Warrick, what have you done?"

He whispered, "Nothing."

Yvette heard him. She was suddenly beside us, white skirts swinging. She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. "The entire point to burning the other buildings was to leave a trail of evidence that would culminate in tonight's little sacrifice. A little burnt offering to our master. You burned the stadium as we planned."

He shook his head, blue eyes wide, but not frightened.

She hit him hard enough to leave her hand in a red outline on his cheek. "You holy-rolling bastard. You answer to the same master that I answer to. I will rot the skin from your bones for this."

Warrick stood very straight. You could see him preparing for the torment to come. He stood shining and white and he looked like a holy warrior. There was a peace in his face that was lovely to look upon.

Yvette's power surged forward and I got just the faintest backwash. But Warrick stood there untouched, pure. Nothing happened. Yvette turned to all of us. "Who is helping him? Who is protecting him from me?"

I realized what was happening. "No one's helping him, Yvette," I said. "He is a master vampire and you can't hurt him anymore."

"What are you talking about? He is mine. Mine to do with as I see fit. He has always been mine."

"Not anymore," I said.

Warrick smiled and it was beatific. "God has freed me from you, Yvette. He has finally forgiven me for my fall from grace. My lusting after your white flesh that led me to hell. I am free of it. I am free of you."

"No," she said. "No!"

"It seems our brother council member was limiting Warrick's powers," the Traveler said. "As he was giving you power, Yvette, he was keeping it from Warrick."

"This is not possible," she said. "We will burn this city to the ground and take credit for it. We will show them we are monsters."

"No, Yvette," Warrick said. "We will not."

"I don't need you for this," she said. "I can be monster enough on my own. I'm sure there is a reporter out there somewhere that I can embrace. I'll rot in front of his cameras, on him. I will not fail our master. I will be the monster he wants us to be. The monsters we truly are." She held out her hand to Harry. "Come, let us go find victims in very public places."

"We cannot allow this," the Traveler said.

"No," Padma said. He pushed to his feet with Gideon and Thomas's help. "We cannot allow this."

"No," Warrick said, "we cannot allow her to tempt anyone else. It is enough."

"No, it is not enough. It will never be enough. I will find someone to take your place at my side, Warrick. I can make another of you. Someone who will serve me for all time."

He shook his head slowly. "I cannot allow you to steal another man's soul in my place. I will not ransom another man into the hell of your embrace."

"I thought it was hell you feared," Yvette said. "Centuries of worry that you'll roast in punishment for your crimes." She pouted at him, exaggerating her voice. "Centuries of listening to you whine about your purity and your fall from grace, and the punishment that awaited you."

"I no longer fear my punishment, Yvette."

"Because you think you've been forgiven," she said.

He shook his head. "Only God knows if I am truly forgiven, but if I am to be punished, then I will have earned it. As we all have. I cannot allow you to put another in my place."

She came to him, trailing fingers across his white tunic. I lost sight of her behind his broad back, and when she came back around she was rotting. She trailed decaying hands down his white suit leaving black and green globs, slimy trails like obscene slugs. She laughed at him with a face covered in sores.

Richard whispered, "What is happening to her?"

"Yvette's happening," I said.

"You'll return to France with me. You'll continue to serve me even though you're a master now. If anyone would make such a sacrifice, it is you, Warrick."

"No, no," he said. "If I were truly strong and worthy of God's grace, then perhaps I would return with you, but I am not that strong."

She wrapped her rotting arms around his waist and smiled up at him. Her body was running to ruin, leaking dark fluids over her white dress. Her rich pale hair was drying out before our eyes, turning to crinkling straw. "Then kiss me, Warrick, one last time. I must find your replacement before dawn."

He encircled her with his white robed arms, hugging her against his tall body. "No, Yvette, no." He stared down at her and there was something almost like tenderness on his face. "Forgive me," he said. He held his hands out in front of him.

Blue fire sprang from his hands, a strange pale color, paler even than gas flame.

Yvette turned her rotting face to look behind her at the fire. "You wouldn't dare," she said.

Warrick closed his arms around her. Her dress caught first. She screamed, "Don't be stupid, Warrick! Let me go!"

He held on, and when the fire hit her flesh she went like she'd been doused in kerosene. She burned with a blue light. She screamed, and struggled, but he had her pinned to his chest. She couldn't even beat at the flames with her hands.

The fire bathed Warrick in a nimbus of blue, but he didn't burn. He stood there yellow and white surrounded in blue fire, and he did look like a saint. Something holy and wonderful and terrible to behold. He stood there shining and Yvette began to blacken and peel in his arms. He smiled at us. "God has not forsaken me. Only my fear kept me in thrall to her all these years."

Yvette twisted in his arms, tried to get away, but he held her tight. He dropped to his knees, bowing his head while she fought him. She burned, skin peeling back from her bones, and still she screamed. The stench of burning hair and cooking flesh filled the room, but there was almost no smoke, just heat building. Making everyone in the room move back from them. Finally, mercifully, Yvette stopped moving, stopped screaming.

I think Warrick was praying while she shrieked and writhed and burned. The blue flames roared almost to the ceiling, then changed color. They became pure yellow-orange, the color of ordinary flame.

I remembered McKinnon's story of how the firebug had burned once the fire changed color. "Warrick, Warrick, let her go. You'll burn with her."

Warrick's voice came one last time. "I do not fear God's embrace. He demands sacrifice, but he is merciful." He never screamed. The fire began to eat at him, but he never made a sound. In that silence we heard a different voice. A high-pitched screaming, low and wordless, pitiless, hopeless. Yvette was still alive.

Someone finally asked if there was a fire extinguisher. Jason said, "No, there isn't." I looked at him across the room, and he met my gaze. We stared at each other and I knew that he knew exactly where the fire extinguisher was. Jean-Claude, whose hand I was still holding, knew where it was. Hell, I knew where it was. None of us went running. We let her burn. We let them both burn. Warrick I would have saved if I could have, but Yvette--Burn, baby, burn.

53

The council went home. We had the word of two members that we would not be bothered again. I wasn't sure I trusted them, but it was the best we were going to get. Richard and I are meeting regularly with Jean-Claude, learning how to control the marks. I still can't control the munin, but I'm working on it, and Richard is helping me. We're trying to be less nasty to one another. He's gone out of state for the rest of the summer to finish work on his master's degree in preternatural biology. Hard to work on the marks from that big a distance.

He's approached the local pack there for possible lupa candidates. I don't know how I feel about that. I'm not even sure it's Richard that I would miss. It's the pack, the lukoi. You can always find another boyfriend, but a new family, especially one this strange, that's a rare gift. All the wereleopards have come on board my bandwagon, even Elizabeth. Surprise, surprise.