CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Nick woke to sensations of heat and a cacophony of sound.

Even before he struggled to lift the iron weights that hung over his eyes, he felt the heat on his face, on his arms and neck.

He heard voices as well, but could not distinguish any words.

He opened his eyes.

At first, he could not understand what he was seeing. There was only an indeterminate glare of red-orange framed in the middle of universal blackness. The glare seemed both immediate and distant. Since there was nothing else visible, he didn’t know whether it was close or miles away.

He could feel its heat on his skin. It must be close.

A shadow blocked part of the glare and where the shadow fell on his skin, Nick felt a delicious coolness.

“He’s okay. Not too bad,” a voice said. Something touched Nick’s wrist. A finger and a thumb. Someone checking his pulse.

With that perception, events pulled together and Nick tried to sit up.

“Take it easy,” the voice said. “You got no breaks or deep cuts, mostly scratches and bruises, but don’t try to move too fast.”

Nick nodded numbly but continued moving until he was standing—a bit wobbly to be sure, but standing. His back rested against the side of the paramedics’ truck. A man in a dark uniform hovered beside him, as if afraid that Nick would suddenly topple over and damage himself further.

Nick waved his hand, meaning the gesture to say hey, I’m okay now, no problem.

The man in the uniform shrugged and moved away.

Nick closed his eyes for a moment. He felt all right. Stings from cuts, sure, and places where he felt like his ribs and arms and back had been hit with sledge hammers. His leg burned. There was an awkward bulkiness there. He looked down and saw the bandages that swathed him from ankle to knee. But other than that he was fundamentally okay.

He raised his eyes and looked around. Payne’s house was engulfed in flames. The roof had fallen in and flames hurtled skyward through the emptiness where the attic had been. The cyclopean eye was gone; that part of the front wall must have toppled inward because the porch was burning but unlittered by debris.

Dark silhouettes flitted in the night between Nick and the fire, and he knew from their frantic attempts to fight the fire that he could not have been unconscious for very long.

He stood away from the truck and took a few steps. He was a little dizzy. Nothing that time and a long rest wouldn’t cure.

At the edge of the street, a clot of dark figures huddled around something. They parted long enough for Nick to see two men standing on each side of a slim form sitting in the open doors of the ambulance. Someone else was standing in front of her, his back to Nick and his attention riveted on the woman being cared for my one of the paramedics. Nick recognized the woman.

Cathy!

He stumbled toward the ambulance.

“Cathy!” he yelled, oblivious to the fact that he barely knew the woman, that he had spoken to her only once.

At the sound of his voice, she looked up and started to call to him. He tripped on a fire hose and pitched forward. Someone grabbed him by the arm—careful to avoid the bandages plastered here and there on his skin like military badges of valor—and propelled him around one of the trucks into the relative calmness and quiet of the street. When his eyes got used to the dark, Nick looked around.

The street was clogged with fire trucks and police vehicles and news crews in—and in two cases on—vans. Beyond a fragile barrier of wooden barricades connected by yellow plastic ribbon, neighbors and strangers stared, some at Nick, others at the fire raging beyond him.

“Hey, man, you okay?” the man holding onto Nick’s arm asked.

“Where’s Payne? Mr. Gunnison?”

The man looked blankly and shrugged.

“The owner. It’s his house that’s burning.”

Comprehension dawned and the man pointed back toward the knot of people standing where the ambulance had been only seconds before.

Nick studied the group. Yes, there was Payne standing next to Cathy. From this distance, and from what little Nick could see of him, he looked unharmed, other than a bandage across his forehead. Nick started across to him, then slowed and stopped. Payne looked well.

Too well.

Nick remembered seeing Payne in agony in the living room, remembered the flashes of current scouring Payne’s body and whipping him around. Nick remembered the thing inside as it reached out to touch....

“Payne!” he yelled. Payne jerked his head up as if startled and stared for a moment.

Nick felt a chill begin at the base of his neck and ripple down his spine.

The clump of forms parted. Payne said something to Cathy and touched her on the shoulder and then turned away and walked toward Nick. He walked slowly, painfully, as if he hurt in every joint. But he didn’t limp. He didn’t shuffle or drag one leg behind him. His shoulders slumped, but it was the slump of utter, bone-breaking fatigue not of age or disease, and when Payne grabbed Nick’s shoulders both hands were strong and steady, with fingers that were young and slender and strong.

“You all right?” Payne asked.

“Yeah. How’s Cathy?”

Payne grinned suddenly—it was so unexpected that for a moment Nick’s exhausted brain interpreted the movement as a grimace, a threat.

“She’s going to be fine. Burns are mostly superficial. No concussion, they think. They’re bandaging her hands now.”

Nick wanted to say something but suddenly his well of words failed. So did Payne’s, apparently, because they both turned as if with one motion and watched the firemen scurrying around the house.

Sometime during the fire, sparks had landed on the roof of the garage because it was burning strongly now as well. A line of hoses protected Nick’s place on one side and the Harrisons’ on the other.

Payne’s house would be a total loss. That much was obvious to everyone. The sense of frantic effort diminished. The best the fire companies could hope for would be containment to only the two structures.

The two men crossed through the darkness and stood near where Cathy sat on a chair that neither of them recognized. One of the neighbors must have brought it out for her. It was a white aluminum chair with white webbing touched with blue. In the reflected glare from the fire, Cathy seemed sitting on cold flames.

Nick shivered and turned away. The three of them watched the fire for a long time. None spoke.

Gradually the flames died down. Gusts of sparks exploded as interior walls fell or rafters gave way, but the worst was over. Some of the spectators filtered away, enervated by the dying fire or exhausted by the late hour. One by one the camera crews departed, and several of the fire trucks.

Officials stood by Payne for long moments at a time asking questions in low voices. Payne answered curtly, with one- or two-word responses, often only shaking his head or nodding.

Several times, firemen or paramedics tried to persuade Cathy to go to the hospital and have the burns on her hand treated further. She held up her hand. The gauze wrappings glowed redly against the firelight. She shook her head resolutely. She refused to leave the yard on Greensward. Her eyes never left Payne, except when she allowed them to stray to the fire for a few seconds at a time.

Through it all, Payne watched the house as it died. Nick watched it, too. Neither Payne nor Nick nor Cathy grieved at the loss.