Chapter Thirty-Nine

The fire followed them as they struggled up the stairs, both Topaz and Rom supporting Sapphire between them. As Topaz told herself with every step, if the door at the top proved locked, they would all die down here together.

It wasn’t till she touched the door she realized something besides the fire followed them. A glance behind showed her Clifford, scalded by boiling water, his face and hands red and blotched, had dragged himself from the inner room and pushed past Frederick’s body and up the hallway.

Without conscious thought, she turned the doorknob. The door opened, and she thrust both Rom and her brother through.

“Take him, Rom. I’ll handle this.”

“No—” Rom began, and she felt his protest arc through her.

She slammed the door on him, whirled, and drew a breath. No weapon, save her body. It would have to be enough. Her gaze skimmed the blackened, lifeless form that had once been her father before fastening on Clifford.

His eyes, bloodshot and set in a face now mottled and barely recognizable, held no mercy. How many poor souls had looked into those eyes, searching for humanity that didn’t exist?

He had already lost his soul; she had only to finish his flesh.

She flew down the stairs on eager feet. If she were to die here, lost to the now-roaring flames, it would not be too high a price so long as she took this monster with her.

The power of that thought sent her feet first into Clifford, heedless of all else. Her boots took him in the chest and knocked him over. She landed on top of him, face to face, her eyes staring into the darkness that possessed him.

“Be gone,” she told him.

“Not unless I take you with me.”

His hands closed around her throat. Pain blossomed as he found the pressure points there, and darkness rushed at her, composed of hate and greed and all the emotions that made him the abomination he was.

“I think I will appropriate your body,” he said. “You see, mine is ruined. But yours—strong and supple. Only imagine what I might accomplish with it.”

“Never.” She bared her teeth and fought back, breaking his grip and smashing his head against the stone floor. But his fury, that of a maddened creature, had him reaching for her again. This time his fingers tightened till she saw dark spots dance against the bright flames roaring down the hallway.

Topaz! Rom’s voice screamed in her mind. He could feel her peril through their connection. Would he be forced to feel her die?

No. Instead her spirit rose up in a wall of brightness to confront Clifford’s intense darkness. Like a golden shield, she raised and battered him with it, bright and savage, finding at last the might that had always dwelt within.

His eyes widened and his fingers slackened. His head struck the stone floor one last time before his spirit—dark as foul smoke—left his body and hovered above it.

Topaz, still gasping, recoiled as from the stench of decay. On her feet, she backed toward the stairs even as his foul spirit reached for her with tendrils like fingers. Her mind, working now without her intent, caught up her own brightness and made of it armor—that not of a flesh-and-blood warrior but a spiritual one. Clifford’s darkness rebounded from it, arose like a hive of bees, and streamed away through the ceiling.

Topaz drew a breath—hot from the encroaching flames—and scampered for the stairs. The flames would take Clifford’s body even as they must consume her father’s. She felt a twinge of loss but dismissed it even as she dragged herself up the stairs and ducked through the door into the kitchen. Time later to sort out her complicated feelings for her father. Not now.

Abovestairs she found chaos and a great deal of smoke. Steamies stood everywhere in various states of shutdown. In the grand foyer she found Rom ushering out the last of the human servants while Sapphire, much recovered, held their mother caught in his arms.

“Topaz!” Dahlia called. “What’s happening? Where’s your father?”

Where, indeed? Topaz fancied she could feel his spirit all around her, just as she felt Rom’s relief when he turned and saw her. Impossible to imagine the spirit master could be destroyed.

“Get outside,” she told her mother and cast a look at Rom. “The house is going to come down. Is that everyone?”

He nodded, reached out, and threaded his fingers through hers. They exited together with Sapphire carrying Dahlia, to find confusion in the street, as well.

The first person she saw—Patrick Kelly—gave orders to the fire wagon that had just arrived. Two more steamed up the Parkway. Sleet fell from an ink-black sky like needles, pelting everyone. Neighbors and their servants poured from other houses to observe the spectacle.

Topaz, with Rom’s arm now wrapped around her, turned to look also.

The house, flames soaring upward from the cellar, looked like a candle-lit jack-o-lantern, the windows ghostly carved orifices. Topaz watched the last of the spirits—those always attracted to Frederick Hathor—stream away as might bats from a cave, into the deeper darkness of the sky.

Did that mean he was gone, his spirit also driven away? Did they follow him even yet?

“Frederick!” Dahlia screamed desperately as the flames leaped higher, into the second and third floors. She fought against Sapphire, who still held her. “Let me go to him.”

“Mother, no.” Sapphire wrapped his arms around her more tightly, and she dissolved into sobs against his chest.

Patrick Kelly approached, clad in his police uniform, his face expressionless.

“Miss Topaz, I am glad to see you safe. Do you know if anyone remains inside? I would not wish to risk members of my squad needlessly, but will send them in if there is a chance of saving human life.”

“Steam units,” she replied. “My father—dead. Clifford—dead.”

“Dead?” Rom repeated in wonder.

“I finished him myself.” She looked at Pat. “Self-defense.”

He nodded.

She asked, “Has this become an official investigation?”

“Indeed. I will need to take statements from everyone involved. But that can wait.” He looked at the building, already well beyond salvage. The fire wagons concentrated on keeping the neighboring homes dampened down. “Meanwhile, let it burn. There is, I believe, such a thing as cleansing fire.”

Topaz reached out and clasped Pat’s hand. He looked startled and even more so when tears came to her eyes.

“Thank you, Pat. You are an extraordinary friend, and it’s an honor to know you.”

He smiled, pure Irish. “Likewise. I can only say you are a woman of great courage.”

“My woman of great courage.” Rom’s arms tightened. He inquired of Pat, “Is Rose safe?”

“I left her under the protection of some friends.”

Topaz looked at Pat seriously. “Now that this is over, she won’t do anything…dangerous to herself, will she?”

“I assure you, Miss Topaz, I will not allow that.” Pat exhaled steam into the hot air. “I believe if anyone can persuade her to exist in a body she finds repugnant, it is I.”

He walked away before Topaz could speak the words that sprang to mind: Rose is a lucky woman. She relaxed back against Rom. But not so lucky as me. “Is it over?” she murmured. “Please tell me it’s over.”

“I believe so,” Rom whispered in her ear, and sent a frisson of delight through her weary body. “Just the pieces left to pick up.”

A terrible, great number of pieces, Topaz acknowledged. But for now she could only stand and watch her family home burn.