LOT'S MOUNTAIN

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: Ashes to Ashes

The last time I took out an emotion, I found me and jerked myself right out of the Place of Losing. But that's not what I need to do now. No. Even if I'm strong enough to fight the wendigo magic on this place (which is a BIG if that I'm not willing to risk) and get me and Jamie out of here by using my guilt, that won't help Bill.

I've been getting stronger every time I use my power. The Stone Men thought I was ready to be one of them. They trained me.

I can lose some powerful stuff. But I can find powerful stuff, too. I am as strong as the Stone Men knew I could be, and I'm going to get even stronger. It's time for me to show these sons of bitches just who they're dealing with.

If Bill is going to be trapped here as long as these walls stand, then I'm going to destroy it. I want this place ripped apart. I want to burn this house to the ground. Yeah, I want 210 Carver Street to be a pile of ashes.

Fire ... That's what I need and that's what I find.

All of a sudden, one of the candles erupts in a giant, swirling blast of flame that catches Runner right in the face, knocking her against the wall. I have to admit that I pause a little just to savor the moment. But it doesn't take long. One minute the wendigo's screeching and yowling like a dying animal, and the next she falls. As soon as she crumples, the chains around me retract and shrink back into her.

She didn't last long, not with a freaking inferno right on top of her. Hell, I just wanted to wipe this house off the map, but this is even better. It was too quick, though, and way quicker than it should have been. She didn't have to suffer a week, not like Bill did. It really doesn't seem fair. I wanted her to scream more. Maybe I should feel bad about that, but this should have been a bigger fight, right?

I keep waiting for her to stand up, but it's pretty obvious that she's already dead. I can see the slivers of her teeth poking up through the charred blackness that used to be her mouth. Her skin dissolves in the fiery ocean around her, leaving only crumbling bones.

Holy shit, I did it! I really did it!

Runner may have been some hot shit when she got somebody cornered, but she sure as hell didn't know that I could do that. Well, neither did I.

There's a noise, something beside the crackling of the fire. It almost sounds like a cat when it's real ticked off, you know, when they make a whine deep in their throats that starts off real soft and then gears up and gets louder and louder. Swift was just as stunned as I was when the fire hit, but now he sees that Runner is dead and I'm the one that did it.

Just as soon as I leap to my feet, Swift comes running. When he tries to reach out and grab me, the fire on Runner becomes a curtain of flame that springs on him. I've been holding that guilt inside of me for so long and now this is what I've found in its place—fire that keeps burning so hot that it barbequed one wendigo and is now moving onto the other.

Runner stops growling, his voice splintering into a sickening shriek as the fire on him roars. As I watch, the wendigo staggers and swings around, lashing out wildly with his claws while the blistering flames blast through him. After sinking to his knees, he then collapses and just keeps burning.

The two things that cut on my brother and made that other guy work him over are dead. They're ashes. They're nothing. But I don't have time to be happy about it because the fire doesn't stop with the monsters. The orange surges upward, swallowing the ceiling, and then just keeps going.

******

To be honest, I panic as I watch the fire spread so fast. It's not pretty, and I'm not proud of it. I cuss a little, well, a lot. Then I call for help, even though I'm pretty sure that nothing's around that I want to get help from.