Darkness Girl: Trickster God

Chapter Sixty-Nine: The Smell of Fire

The fire reached the bottom of the hotel with sticky, grasping tendrils. The sun-bleached wood went up quickly as the flames touched it. 

Trapped between the wall of flame and the motel, Sarafina wiped her face with her sleeve and tried to concentrate. The smoke made her eyes sting, and the heat dried out her mouth and made her tongue feel like paper. Forester was lying on the ground in front of her. The bandages she'd used to wrap his wounds were already sodden with blood. His breath was coming in quick, shallow gasps. She tried to push down and staunch the bleeding. Blood began to seep between her fingers. 

'It's no good. It won't stop, and I don't have any more bandages.' 

She looked at Forester's face and felt a sick feeling begin in her stomach. His cheeks had the pallid colour of a fresh corpse. 

'It's something about those spikes,' said Bennet. 'The wounds won't close.' 

'We need to leave,' said Trevellian. 

He was cradling his burned arm against his body, but Sarafina could see where the liquid fire had touched him. It had melted through his sleeve like plastic and fused the material against his flesh. 

Sarafina looked through the flames. On the other side of the carpark, Regan and Kessler tore at one another like wild dogs in a pit. Their fight was fast and savage, without grace or form. She watched Regan rebound from an attack and switch direction in one movement. She looked like she was pushing her body to its limit. 

'You won't be able to reach her,' said Trevellian. 'As far as they're concerned, they're both back on the blood drenched streets of the city. There won't be any lucky escapes this time. They won't stop until one of them is dead.' 

Sarafina flinched as a burning sheet of wood slipped from the side of the building and hit the ground in a shower of sparks. There was a filthy haze in the air now that made her eyes sting. The choking, acrid smoke turned the air into a soup, and coated her lungs. She looked down at Forester. His eyelids were starting to flutter. She gave him a sharp slap. 

'No falling asleep now. You might not wake up again.' 

'My fingers feel cold.' 

She picked up Forester's hand. His fingernails were tinged with blue. 

Bennet coughed. 'We're going to burn with this place if we stay here.' 

Sarafina rubbed her eye. 'He's lost a lot of blood.' 

The flames climbed up the motel floor by floor and lit the plume of smoke that poured from the roof with a dirty orange glow. Sarafina could smell the faintly toxic smell of burning plaster and insulation. She looked at Bennet. She was holding her spear loosely, with the blade held low. As Sarafina watched, a drop of blood formed on the point of her spear and dripped onto the concrete. She followed the trail of blood that dribbled down the shaft of the spear to its source. It was running from Bennet's sleeve. 

Bennet looked at her as if she'd caught Sarafina reading her diary. 

Sarafina shook her head. 'You damn fool.'

Bennet wavered on her feet, but she gripped her spear tightly. Her fingers were slick with blood. 

'I can look after myself.' 

'You could pass out from blood loss.' 

Bennet ignored her and looked across the burning carpark at Regan and Kessler. 'There will be time to lick our wounds later. The strike team that came with Westlake may still be out there. We need to--' 

The woman covered in spines burst through the flames like a jack-in-the-box and hit Bennet from the side. They hit the ground in a snarling, screaming mess. The woman was like a rat trapped in a cage. She lashed out in a savage frenzy that ripped open deep gashes wherever she touched. She snarled as she slashed at Bennet's face. Her skin was blackened like overcooked meat, and patches had been seared away to reveal the wet, glistening flesh beneath. 

Sarafina leapt over Forester ran to flank the woman. She tried to grab her and pull her back, but the woman's burns made her body like mush. Sarafina's fingers slipped as a chunk of skin came away in her hand like wet tissue.  

She saw Bennet fumbling to pull a combat knife from her belt as she tried to shield her face with her arm. The knife came free, and she stabbed it up into the woman's chest. A gout of black blood spilled out of the wound as Bennet forced the knife up under her breast bone. She twisted away as it splattered across her face. 

The woman drew in a breath and started to scream. Sarafina felt the sound in her bones as it hit her like a physical blow. The pitch was different from before. It sounded like the woman's throat had been slashed to ribbons. Sarafina could feel the scream scraping across her brain like glass. 

She dropped to her knees. 

Through the haze, she saw Bennet sit up. She wasn't sure what she was going to do. Her jaw was clenched as if she was holding herself together with sheer willpower. 

Bennet jammed her fist into the woman's mouth. 

The screaming stopped with a sudden choke. The woman made muffled noises around Bennet's fist and lashed out blindly as it cut off her air supply. 

Sarafina heard Bennet scream as the woman bit down. Blood started to run down her arm. She sat forward and forced the woman's head back as she punched at her temple with her free hand. Sharp spines broke off like glass and embedded themselves in her fist. 

The handle of Bennet's knife was still sticking out of the woman's chest. Bennet was screaming as she tried to pull her hand out of the woman's mouth. Blood was streaming down her arm as the woman's teeth cut into the delicate ligaments and tendons of her hand. The woman held on like a jackal with a chunk of carrion. She twisted her head and bit down deeply. 

There wasn't time to think anymore. Sarafina wrapped her arms around the woman. Sharp spines opened wounds on her body. She reached around and grabbed the handle of the knife. With a sharp jerk, she dragged the blade upwards. She felt blood spilling over her hand as she opened up a jagged wound in the woman's chest. The barbs on the woman's back cut through her clothes and dragged into her flesh like fish hooks as she struggled. Sarafina pulled harder and felt the woman shudder. Her body stiffened, and Sarafina heard her let out a long breath through her nose. As the air left her lungs, the woman slumped forward. 

She kept her grip on the handle of the knife even as she felt the woman stop struggling. She bit her lip and hoped to god the woman was dead.