| |
Abby didn’t fall when the set exploded, but she did duck and cover her eyes. When she looked up again, Milos was gone.
Lily, whom Abby had guessed was in the hayloft when Milos focused his attention there, was just getting up off the ground. Behind her, what was left of the stable burned bright as a bonfire. Abby called to her, but Lily didn’t hear. As faint as her own voice sounded, she guessed the explosion had knocked out Lily’s hearing entirely.
Off to the right, one other person was up and moving as well. The vampire?
Another pair of explosions lit the night. In the flashing brightness, Lily and the vampire saw each other clearly.
Lily fired her crossbow.
The vampire ran.
Abby almost followed them as they raced away. But what on earth was going on? Had Lily done something to blow up the set? Had she killed anyone? There had been other people in the stable, too.
Another explosion rocked Abby’s world. Deciding that Lily could take care of herself for a while, Abby hurried into the flames to rescue everyone else. She found the groom first, and pulled him out of danger. On the second trip she found two more unconscious men, and a woman, and pulled them out, too.
A fireman in full equipment appeared beside her. “Anyone else in there?”
“I don’t think so.”
He looked her up and down, as if trying to make out who she was. Had he seen her carrying those two men on her shoulders?
“You should probably get to safety now, ma’am.” He pointed back the way he’d come. “What you did was pretty impressive, but we can take care of it from here.”
“What happened?”
“We think it’s a gas line. Somebody screwed up the charges. We’re evacuating the whole area.”
Abby started in the direction the fireman had indicated. Around her, screaming and sobbing men and women were staggering the same way. More than a few looked like the Confederate soldier Abby had shared the golf cart with an hour before, clothing ripped, faces smeared with blood.
Only this blood was real.
She looked in the other direction. Where the fire trucks and trailers had been parked, everything was on fire. Including the trucks.
As she watched, the stable collapsed with a loud crash. Fire and sparks arced upwards. Some fell in the vacant lot and started burning. Others landed on the roofs of the nearest buildings and burned there too.
Abby gasped as she saw several people still trapped at the top of the grandstand. The front of the stable had collapsed across it, setting the first dozen rows ablaze.
She turned back. The fireman who’d told her he could handle things was right behind her, the groom draped across his shoulders like a dead deer.
“We have to help them,” she said, pointing up toward the grandstand.
The fireman nodded at the man he was carrying. “What about him? And the other three you rescued?”
Hardly thinking, Abby pulled a man who didn’t look too hurt out of the streaming crowd, and then several more. “Please,” she said. “We need your help.”
She smiled. The face of the man closest to her switched from shock and confusion to hope and joy. The others responded too.
“What do you need?” one asked.
“We need you to carry these people to safety. If you can do that, then—” She held out an appealing hand to the fireman.
“Dan,” he answered.
“—Dan and I can go help them.”
She pointed back toward the poor people stranded at the top of the grandstand.
“Whatever we can do.”
Dumbfounded at how easily Abby had gotten complete strangers to help them, Dan handed the groom over.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Never mind that,” she answered. “I think we need to hurry.”
He followed her around the side of the burning set. She’d have preferred to go right through the fire, but knew that would create more problems than it would solve. As it was, she let Dan go first when they got close and had to chop their way through the edge of the fire with his axe to reach the back of the grandstand.
The top loomed twenty feet off the ground. A man and two women peered over the rail. The heat at the bottom was intense. It was probably worse above.
“Climb down while you still can!” Dan shouted.
“We can’t!” cried the woman who looked the least scared. Which wasn’t saying much. “It’s too hot!”
“Then jump!”
“It’s too far!”
“No it’s not. The worst that can happen is you’ll break a leg!”
“We can’t!” she repeated. The woman beside her wrung her hands.
“Can’t you get a net or something!” called the man.
“There isn’t time!”
Abby waved her arms encouragingly. “Jump!” she shouted. “I’ll catch you.”
The man looked at her like she was out of her mind. Apparently they were too far away for Abby to work her saintly magic on them.
Deciding that there was no other way to help them, she climbed the side of the grandstand. The metal was hot under her hands, but not that hot. Most likely the poor dears were too panicked to think straight. When she reached the top, she threw the man over her shoulder, and climbed back down. He gripped her neck as tightly as her niece ever had.
Pulling him off once she reached the ground, she turned back to the grandstand and raised her arms. “Okay! You’ve seen how strong I am. Now jump! I’ll catch you! It’ll be a lot faster!”
In the distance, a hundred sirens blared. The less frightened woman hitched her legs over the railing and, hands clasped at her chest as if in prayer, jumped. Abby caught her easily, her knees scarcely bending under the sudden weight. The second woman followed right behind, her legs bicycling in terror.
“Wait!” Abby shouted. “I can only catch one—”
Dan, not to be outdone by a woman, even if she was a superhero, moved in. The panicked woman kicked him in the chin and knocked him cold. Falling to the ground, she grabbed her ankle and rolled around in pain.
Abby set the woman she’d caught down. A couple of fires had started in the brush behind them, but the way past the backlot mansion remained clear. “You and your friend help her, okay?” she said to the two who were unhurt, while pointing to the woman on the ground. She made sure she smiled, too. All three calmed visibly. “I’ll follow with the fireman.”
As she spoke, she lifted Dan and slung him over her shoulder.
Yellow and orange flames licked from the deep black smoke around them. The mansion was the only place not burning, its floodlights illuminating it like a bright island.
Three firemen met them just beyond the porch. “Is that everyone?” the chief asked, as he and another firefighter lifted Dan from Abby’s shoulder.
“I think so,” she said. “But I’ll check.”
“Lady—”
She raced back. A last explosion tore the wooden porch out from under her feet. The shock buffeted her face and ears. Giant splinters ripped through her legs and chest. Pain squeezed her, but her real fear as she sailed through the air was that one of the splinters had pierced her heart.
Wouldn’t that be a shame, she thought, as she crashed headfirst into a searchlight, and rolled into the azaleas trailing a fountain of sparks. The last thing she wanted was to die again now.