Pushing aside her guilt over what she’d done, and her apprehension that this plan had already spiraled out of control, she kept moving forward, determined to get to the orphanage and the children. The screams intensified, the frenzy of the pushing almost knocked her to her feet. An elbow in her back caused her to stumble forward three steps. She fell but managed to break the fall with her hands before hitting her knees. Scrambling forward, she remained in a crouch until she made it to the safety of a side yard.
She didn’t realize she was shaking until she was free of the commotion of the street. Running through the snow, she leapt up the back stairs of the orphanage, tripped over the top step, and crashed into the door. A startled shout came from inside when she began to beat against the wood.
“Pallas!” she screamed her voice hoarse from the smoke billowing over and around her. She may not require breath, but the smoke still burned her throat. The door flew open to reveal Pallas and Abbott. They were both pale and shaking; their eyes frantic much like she assumed her own were right now. “Get the children, we must go!”
Pallas spun away to reveal the children huddled behind her in the dining room. “Tempest!” Nora cried and ran toward her.
Nora’s weight rocked her, but she embraced the girl in a firm hug before releasing her. “Come, hurry.” She waved frantically at the others and scooped Agnes up in her arms when she toddled forward.
Turning, Tempest fled across the snow toward the mountains. She had to get the children free of this town, now.
***
William smelled the pungent smoke before he heard the shouts resonating through the streets. The vampires gathered in the cell around him cautiously approached the bars in front as curiosity drew them forward. He remained in the back, leaning against the bars while he watched the guards rise from their chairs.
“I’ll check it out,” one of the men said to the others. He glanced at the cells before grabbing his cloak from a hook. Opening the front door, he poked his head out. Over his shoulder, William spotted vampires running in both directions on the street. Anguish-filled screams rebounded through the building. The vampires around him exchanged uneasy glances. “Stay here,” the man said and stepped out the door.
The other three men stared at the door as they waited for their cohort to return. The door remained closed; the intensity of the screams increased. The men remained inside for a few more minutes waiting for their leader to return. William’s teeth ground together; he fought the urge to tap his foot as he waited for one or all of them to become curious enough to check outside too.
Or fearful enough.
Something thumped onto the roof, causing everyone around him to jump, including the guards. He tilted his head back. His eyes narrowed as he studied the roof; it remained the same, for now. His attention was drawn away from the suspicious noise when smoke began to coil in from under the front door. The nervous murmurs of the prisoners surrounding him became more of a chatter as they surged toward the bars.
The smoke was enough for the three remaining guards. They didn’t give the prisoners a backward glance, or bother to grab their cloaks before they fled out the door. William didn’t wait for it to shut before he turned toward the man closest to him and held out his hands, “Untie me,” he commanded.
The man turned and ran toward the bars. William cursed as he stormed toward the frightened vampires gathered at the bars and now howling to be set free. He shoved his shoulder into the back of another man, shoving him against the bars. “Untie my hands!” he shouted into his ear in order to be heard over the growing commotion.
The man glanced at him over his shoulder; his eyes rolled in his head before he lifted his arm and pulled it back. William dodged the punch the man threw at him as he swung his joined hands into the side of the man’s face. The force of William’s blow caused the man to spin to the side. He crashed against the bars separating their cell from the one next door. The scent of the man’s blood and his body sprawling onto the floor caught the attention of the others.
William thrust his hands out at another man. “If you want to live, untie my hands. I can get us out of here,” he said in a calm tone that finally pierced the shroud of panic enveloping the room.
“They’ll kill us,” another man said in a tremulous voice.
“They’re going to kill you no matter what. I’m the only chance you have.” The man glanced nervously at the front door. “Or we could all burn to death in here. Me, personally, I’d prefer not become a shriveled vamp-ka-bob today.”
A woman with hair the color of a strawberry stepped forward and shoved the man out of the way with her shoulder. Her skin was pale, but her hands were steady when she took hold of the rope. “You can get us out of here?” she asked as she tugged at the rope.
“I can.” He forced himself to remain calm, while inside he was a seething mass of impatience as her fingers worked the knot. Time was running out, he knew it. The smoke in the room was no longer a thin gray stream; it had thickened, causing the whole room to become the color of slate. It would only be minutes before the building was on fire, if it wasn’t already.
A breath escaped him when she finally tugged the knot free. William jerked the rope away from his wrists and threw it aside. Bending down, he pulled off his boot and removed the large hairpin Pallas had given to him. He shoved his foot back into his boot as he worked to bend the pin into the shape he needed it to be.
“Get out of the way,” he said as he pushed his way to the front of the cell. The vampires parted for him, but hovered nervously around him as he stretched his hand over the cell door. His fingers slid over the metal in search of the lock. He finally found the keyhole and slid the pin into it.
He looked at the ceiling as he carefully worked the pin within the lock, searching for the mechanisms to spring the door free. His fingers froze for a second when he spotted a small hole beginning to form above him. The hole started as nothing more than a pinpoint, but became the size of an apple in the few seconds he stopped moving his hand.
The growing hole, directly above him, revealed the burning timber that had fallen onto the roof from the building next door. A timber that would be crashing through the roof, and into his cell any second now. He knew he didn’t have much time as his fingers began to move faster on the pin and lock.
***
Finally making it to the cave leading out of town, after what felt like hours but had only been mere minutes, Tempest turned to look back at her home. Her deadened heart leapt in her chest at the rampant inferno consuming the buildings. Even from this distance, she could hear the shrieks of alarm and terror. The screams came from everywhere at once as they bounced off the face of the mountains and echoed through the valley.
Her hand pressed against her mouth, Agnes snuggled closer against her shoulder and wrapped her chubby arms around her neck. Tempest remained frozen as the flames shot higher into the air and danced across the snow around them in sparkling reds and oranges that would have been stunning, if she hadn’t felt so sickened by the sight.
The crackling sound of the flames brought to mind witches gathered around their caldron, but no one had cast some kind of spell, she had created this.
There was also no sign of William amongst the chaos.
He’d told her to go; he’d told her to leave him and never look back. Tears burned her eyes; her chest ached so badly she found it difficult to turn away. In her mind, she heard his words from when he’d first outlined his outrageous plan to her that night in the attic…
You must leave Tempest, no matter what happens, you have to do whatever you can to get word to my sister, Braith, Daniel, or Jack. They were all in the town of Chippman when I left, they may still be there. Jack will be there no matter what, he’ll take care of you, he’ll keep you safe, and he’ll help you if Braith and Aria have already left. If you don’t leave and get word to them, it will all be for nothing. I’ll find you as soon as I can, and I will find you.
Glancing back at the to
wn, she knew she couldn’t let all of this destruction be for nothing. She couldn’t let this awful loss and sacrifice be in vain, couldn’t allow that woman in the hotel to continue to unleash her destruction on future unsuspecting vampires and humans. She and the children never would have been allowed to leave here. The burnings and imprisonments would have continued until they’d all been broken or locked away and turned into the monsters roaming outside of these mountains.
Anguish bloomed in her chest as she forced herself to turn sideways to shuffle into the entrance of the cave. She froze before she could move much further inside. William wouldn’t find her, she knew it; he wouldn’t be coming. She didn’t know how she knew it; she just knew something had gone wrong, and he was in danger.
“Oh,” she breathed. The feeling of being torn in two sliced through her chest as she bit back an anguished scream.
“Tempest!” Pallas hissed from fifteen feet in front of her. “Tempest, come on.”
She glanced over her shoulder one more time. The wind whipped the fire higher into the air, fanning the flames until they’d become so intense they’d now traveled to the orphanage. Her head tipped back to take in the orange glow playing over the snow and the clouds choking the air.
Her hand slipped into her cloak and wrapped around the patch tucked securely into one of the pockets inside…
Promise me, he’d said to her with a fevered gleam in his blue eyes. I promise, she’d whispered. I’ll do everything I can to make sure word gets out and they know.
Now, with tears burning her eyes and her heart shattering within her chest, she shuffled through the entrance of the cave and fled toward Pallas. She had a promise to keep, and she was going to do everything she could to make sure word made it to the king and queen.
CHAPTER 27
William kept his eyes on the growing circle of fire over his head, and his hand focused on picking the lock. Steady, easy, he told himself as he worked the pin in the lock. If he’d still been human, his heart would be racing so fast he’d have a heart attack. As a vampire, his hand remained unwavering and his heart still, but enough adrenaline coursed through his body to power him at a dead run to the top of the surrounding mountains right now.
“Hurry,” the strawberry-haired woman said to him. As if she really had to tell him that, he was the one directly beneath the growing hole, and the massive, flaming timber.
He shot Strawberry a thunderous look before turning his attention back to the roof and the lock. He felt something click within the lock. Almost there, he thought at the same time the hole in the ceiling became large enough for the beam to fall through. A shout escaped him; he jerked his hand away and jumped back to avoid any falling debris.
The vibrations from the impact vibrated the entire building and caused the bars surrounding him to rattle. His back slammed up against the bars separating the two cells. He pressed himself as flat against the bars as he could in an attempt to avoid the splintered pieces of flaming wood raining down from the timber that had crashed onto the bars over his head. The heat of the fire blistered his face as it roared above him. Sparks from the beam above landed on his cheeks and clothes, leaving burn marks and singed skin in their wake.
More sparks shot out around the crumbling timber, falling over him. A flame shot out from the sleeve of his shirt and his right pant leg. His skin bubbled almost instantly beneath the fire eating at his clothes. Shoving himself away from the bars, he threw himself to the floor. He rolled over repeatedly until the flames on his clothes smothered beneath his weight.
The smell of burnt hair and flesh filled the room, but instead of feeling the pain of the blisters running up and down his arms and across his cheeks, he felt a growing sense of urgency to get out of here. More sparks and flames fell down from the sagging ceiling. Fire spread out around them, catching on the wooden floor and eating away at the boards beneath his feet.
“Is there a basement to this building?” he demanded, hoping for another way out.
The pale and strained faces of those surrounding him were his answer even before Strawberry spoke, “No.”
His head tilted back to the ceiling and bars again; the roof was receding fast as the fire ate at the wood. The noise of the inferno became increasingly louder, drowning out the screams of those outside and the cries of those around him as it snapped and cracked. The fire became a living breathing monster as it greedily ate away at the building. Sweat poured down his face and stuck his clothes to his body; smoke burned his eyes, causing them to water. Few things killed a vampire; the hungry flames surrounding him tied with all of those things at the top of the list.
“Stomp on the flames!” he barked at the others, hoping to buy them some more time as he scrambled back over to the door of the cell.
He stretched his arm through the bars once more and reached down toward the key hole. He found the hole almost instantly, but his heart sank when his hand fell against only an empty slot. Pallas’s pin was no longer there. His hand slapped against the empty space; some of his composure finally slipped as he angrily jerked at the bars, a bellow of frustration building inside of him.
The heat of the fire beat against his back as he searched for the pin knocked free by the impact of the beam on the bars. Finally, through the cloying haze of smoke, he spotted it about four feet away. Lying on his stomach, he stretched his arm through the bars in search of the pin. His hand slapped against the floor; his fingers fell inches shy of the pin. So far, the fire hadn’t spread outside of the cell, but it was only a matter of time, and once it did, they were all as good as dead.
A shout escaped him as he pushed his shoulder more forcefully against the bars. The metal bit into his skin and tore the flesh of his shoulder away from his neck and collarbone. Clamping his teeth against the discomfort, he pushed through the bars until his cheek pressed flush against them. His skin pushed back against his eye socket and cheekbone.
Something in his shoulder cracked; his joint bent in an unnatural way. A low groan escaped him; the sweat rolling down his face wasn’t entirely due to the fire anymore. He fought against the pain as he sought to dislocate his shoulder further in order to get his hand on the pin again.
His joint popped out of place with a loud crack. The sound of it was drowned out beneath the growing crescendo of beams and wood being devoured by the greedy fire. Hell didn’t contain the heat this cell did now. He lurched forward; the steel of the pin brushed against the tips of his fingers, but he couldn’t grasp hold of it. A shout of frustration escaped him; he lunged again but only succeeded in grazing the metal once more.
For the first time, he began to realize he wouldn’t be making it out of this mess alive. His forehead fell against the floor; out of habit, he inhaled a smoke-choked breath that caused him to cough hoarsely against the burn in his throat and lungs.
Tempest, her name blazed through his mind causing sorrow to twist within his chest.
She’d gotten free of this town; he had to believe that. He had to believe she would continue and do what had to be done. She would find help, and when all of this was over, she would find happiness and security somewhere in this world. He wasn’t ready to lose her; he wanted more time with her, so much more time. He didn’t think an eternity would have been enough.
Drawing on her lingering scent on his body, and the vivid image of her in his head, he lifted his forehead off the floor. No matter what happened, he wouldn’t give up until he was dead. With a low groan, he pulled back and pushed himself forward one more time, but again his fingers just missed the pin. He pulled back again and lurched forward as the vampires around him continued to try and beat out the growing flames.
He pulled away from the bars to slap at the flames that caught at the bottom of his shirt and began to lick their way up toward his chest. Blisters formed on his palms but he continued to beat at the flames until they fanned out. He fell back against the bars as the heat burned against his body. Around him the vampires began to falter, they fell back against the w
alls, some collapsed onto the floor.
Grabbing hold of a bar with his one good hand, he pulled himself to his feet, placed his dislocated shoulder in between the bars and wrenched backward. He never heard the pop over the fire when his joint snapped into place again. His gaze went to the ceiling and the bars overhead, searching for some other way out, but though the bars were beginning to glow from the heat, they remained otherwise unaffected by the flames.
A fresh burst of air caused the fire around him to swirl higher. The flames became a mini tornado in the room that whipped around the walls before dying down again. The vampires in the cell next door fell back when the rush of air caused the flames to leap at them. William searched for the source of the clean air, but the flames and smoke made it impossible to see. His head lulled toward the front door.
“Tempest.” Her name left his mouth before he saw her. He’d know her soul anywhere, he realized.
Red rimmed her swollen eyes; smoke and ash streaked her face as she materialized through the haze of smoke and flames. Her lovely brown eyes were frantic when her hands wrapped around his on the bars.
“What are you doing here?” His throat, raw from the smoke and flames, made his voice sound as if he’d been eating glass.
“How do I get you out?” she inquired instead of answering him.
“You have to go. I told you to leave.”
Her eyes burned into his. “I created this mess; I’m not leaving you to it.”
“I created this mess. Get out of here; I won’t let you die because of me.”
“You’re not letting me do anything, I am doing this. Now stop wasting time by arguing with me, and tell me what to do to get you free.”