Chapter 57
G randpa Lee drove the truck to the estate’s front doors. Those doors hung open as Amiya and her group had left them. Some of the captives had wandered outdoors and milled in the front yard.
Many of them gaped at the vehicle, awestruck, as if it were a fiery chariot that had descended from the heavens.
“What good’s it going to do to set it on fire when it gets made new every night?” Amiya asked Grandpa Lee.
“We’ve got to break the cycle,” Grandpa Lee said. He slammed the truck into park. “It’s like trying to untie a knot. We can’t untie it, so we just gotta tear it all apart. Fire started the curse. Only fire can end it.”
She didn’t understand what he meant about a curse, but he seemed to have a depth of knowledge about the situation that surpassed everyone else’s, and she questioned if he had known, all along, what had been going on back here. The possibility disturbed her.
But there was no time for such worries. The Overseer would turn up again, soon, and in the meantime, they had work to do.
She didn’t want to dwell on the Overseer too much, either.
She forced open the passenger door. She and the others literally spilled out of the truck.
“If we’re setting this place on fire,” Raven said, “we’ve got to get everyone out of the house.”
“I’ll go with you,” Ossie said. “We’ll get everyone into the front yard, a good ways away from whatever fire you get going.”
The two of them dashed inside the house through the front doorway.
Grandpa Lee lowered the truck’s lift-gate and looked at Amiya. “Grab a couple cans of kerosene out the back here. You and me, we need to soak it down, every floor.”
Amiya peered at the flatbed. Several gleaming metal cans of kerosene stood on the flatbed floor. It was enough of the flammable substance to set a fire on the property that would be visible for miles.
She slid two of the cans toward her, grabbed their handles, and lifted them out of the truck.
It was like picking up two ten-pound dumbbells in each hand.
She had been worn down from everything that had happened that day—the misadventures and terrors—but somehow, she summoned the strength to lug the kerosene toward the mansion’s front steps.
“Matches.” Grandpa Lee tossed her a box of matchsticks. “Don’t wait around. Soon as you soak a room, light it up.”
Amiya shuffled inside as fast as she could. The house staff, those who hadn’t already gone outside, were in a state of chaos. Raven and Ossie were trying to convince them to leave, but Amiya saw people shaking their heads, crying, shouting disagreements.
“We’re setting Westbrook on fire!” Amiya shouted, lifting a can of kerosene and waving it as if it were a flag. “Get out or you’ll burn in here!”
Fear spread across their faces. Perhaps her warning would spur them into action.
Amiya hurried to the staircase, fuel sloshing with each step. It was a long journey to the third level, but she made it up there. She spun open a can and dribbled the clear, sharp-smelling fluid throughout the wide open area where she had first watched night come over the land.
Then she struck a match and set it ablaze.
The fire came instantly, like angry spirits rising from the floor. The intense heat baked the perspiration on her face. She hustled back down the staircase to the second floor.
The second floor contained all of the bedrooms and a bath, and she needed to saturate each one. Planning to work her way back from one end to the other, she began by opening the closed door at the termination of the long corridor.
It was a room she hadn’t seen before, but she immediately recognized its purpose: Robert Westbrook’s private quarters.
The décor was ostentatious: Persian area rugs with intricate designs; heavy maroon velvet draperies flanking the long double-sash windows; an immense four-post bed fashioned from mahogany, with gold highlights; overstuffed chairs with gold inlays; a glittering crystal chandelier; a fireplace spacious enough to roast a pig, alight with dancing flames.
Robert Westbrook stood in front of the fireplace. At her entrance, he turned.
“You’ve reconsidered my offer, eh, lady?” he asked.
Such a wave of shock washed over Amiya that she almost lost her grip on the kerosene can. Almost.
I slit his throat from ear to ear and watched him collapse. How can he be alive?
Although alive, his movements weren’t as well-coordinated as before. His head appeared slightly out of sync with his neck, as if it had been soldered back onto his body by a blind craftsman. A faint red line marked where she had sliced his throat with the blade.
“I won’t be such a gentleman this time, my lady,” Westbrook said.
He flashed his shark’s grin. He ambled toward her with jerky steps, like a poorly handled puppet.
Amiya grinned savagely. “I. Am. Not. Your. Lady!”
She thrust the can toward him, sending a shimmering arc of kerosene in his direction. The fluid spattered his face, the front of his tuxedo, and the surrounding rug. Westbrook scowled as if he’d tasted something foul.
Amiya lit a match and tossed it toward him.
He burst into flames like a tallow candle. He shrieked, and it was a terrible sound she’d never heard issue from anyone: like a screaming chorus of dying souls. Blindly, he stumbled into a wall. The wallpaper caught fire, crackling and smoking.
Amiya liberally saturated the rest of the bedroom and got out of there.
She went from one room to the next. Soon, she had emptied one can. She twisted open the other and continued to work through the vacant rooms. Foul-smelling black smoke poisoned the air. Flames crawled across the floors, walls, and ceilings as she backed toward the head of the staircase.
Downstairs, she heard someone scream. She turned, sweat dripping from her brow.
The Overseer had arrived. He loomed at the bottom of the staircase. All around him, flames danced, and smoke twisted about him in serpent-like tendrils.
Amiya dropped the kerosene, put her hand to her mouth.
It was Nick . . . but it wasn’t. He wore the clothing of a prior era, and the clothes fit his slender frame as if they had been tailored especially for him.
But the true difference was in his eyes.
He looked at her as if he didn’t recognize her at all.
The soul of the man she loved had to be buried somewhere in that body, but it was hidden behind a mask of hatred and rage.
“You must be marked,” he said.
He lifted the glowing branding iron.
He ascended the steps toward her.