Chapter Six
Five-Alarm
London
The portal deposits me outside the building.
The air is thick with smoke and heat. A row of terraced houses burns from the inside out, flames pushing through upper windows with steady determination.
Rain bounces off the cobblestones, doing nothing to douse the roaring flames consuming the structure.
It is London after all, so of course it’s raining.
The grey sky serves as the backdrop to the chaos and carnage before me.
Emergency services are moving at breakneck speed. Ladders are hoisted to access the top floors while firemen rush in and out of the smoldering doors. Lights flash, sirens wail, and people scream.
I assess the scene with the clinical detachment of someone who has done this a hundred times before.
The chaos of these mass casualty events has become a sad mundanity to me.
I wish that weren’t true, but hundreds of years of reaping desperate souls, seeing them torn apart, dull the senses.
Centuries of unliving with the pain and regret of my own life lost do the same.
My eyes focus on the flames licking the outside walls.
The sounds around me soften to a dull whisper while the crackling buzz of the fire popping against the wood, paint, and glass grows impossibly louder.
My mind begins to play tricks on me.
My vision swims with the yellows, oranges, reds, and blues. The flames enthrall me. Then, inevitably, the terror consumes me.
My mind flashes to another part of London, another fire, a much more personal pain. I can smell the stench of the unwashed inmates, feel the cold metal heat in my grasp.
The screams, the banging, and the cries are all-consuming, and I feel as though I were being choked by the smoke once more. I have to get out; I have to break free and reach her …
My mind transports me to that fateful moment, despite the chaos surrounding me now. I can hear his maniacal, disgusting laughter and feel his cold eyes boring into me.
I dig my nails into the sides of my trousers, pushing back the memories and fighting them off just as the firemen combat the flames in front of us.
I feel my hands shaking and force them to be still.
I sense the souls I must guide to the OtherWorld, and I can hear their pitiful moans.
Then I hear a sigh that comes from much closer.
My attention shifts from the chaotic scene before me to the young reaper beside me—Quinn Abernathy.
He’s another CAT reaper, recently assigned.
Although he’s only been on the job for a few short weeks, that’s still long enough for him to get on my last nerve.
He stands with his coat unbuttoned and his sleeves pushed up, his skin streaked with soot, indicating he’s already navigated through the wreckage in front of us. His long braid is pulled back, revealing a jagged scar over his left eye, a visual reminder of his mortal end.
Quinn’s mortal time ended in his early twenties, near the end of the twentieth century. He was young enough to think he had all the answers, just like everyone else did back then.
As a reaper, even in the short time he’s been around, Quinn sets a gold standard. He is precise, direct, and efficient, and he gets the job done quickly. As a person though, he’s a smug bastard.
His nasally Glaswegian accent cuts through the chaos around us. “You’re late.”
I survey the unspeakable destruction. The screams of the suffering and poor souls trying to assist mix with the blaring sirens and the crackling flames.
“What’s a few extra minutes of pain and suffering when an eternity of nothingness awaits them on the other side? Those souls in there should thank me.”
“How do you figure?” Quinn asks incredulously.
“At least they can still feel something now.”
“Unimaginable, crippling pain.”
“Not unimaginable,” I mumble to myself. Shaking off the phantom ache, I add, louder this time, “Better than nothing.”
“You’re heartless.”
“We all are, Quinn. No sense pretending otherwise.”
My retort cuts the conversation short, which I consider a small victory.
Quinn gives me a status report. Newbies can be such sticklers for the rules. The futility of it all hasn’t sunk in yet.
Give it time, Abernathy. The dull ache catches up with us all.
My thoughts are interrupted by Quinn’s analysis.
“We’ve got multiple fatalities. I’ve managed to pull two clean extractions so far. Emergency crews still have a chance to save a few people inside, but if that fire brigade doesn’t contain the blaze, we’ll be here a while.”
“Let’s get on with it then. I’ll take the front, and you go around back. We’ll do a sweep and then reevaluate after our initial pass.”
The young Scot looks me over, and I briefly wonder what he sees. “After you, old-timer.”
I still my tongue. No sense in getting into it with him right now. What’s the point of any of it?
I move toward the amber-ringed entrance. I have a job to do, and I am good at it.
As I step closer to the crumbling doorway, I hear a clang that pulls my attention. An emergency worker is pounding a wrench against the side of an unruly fire hydrant. Their attempts to loosen the fixture are pointless, but the sound unlocks a memory within me.
The repetitive clang of metal against metal transports me to my forge. I recall the days, months, and years spent pounding steel, releasing my anger into that malleable material. I lived with loss and regret and longing until she walked into my shop.
All I had to do was fix one wheel. But once a wheel finds its shape, it never stops spinning.
My daydream is broken by Quinn’s soft throat clearing.
“You all right?” he asks gently, his usually brusque exterior replaced by genuine concern.
Shit. How long have I been standing here? How long did that reminiscence last? It felt like ages, but time plays tricks. A memory can be just a moment in reflection, or it can swallow you whole. From the look on Quinn’s face, I realize it was long enough to be noticeable.
“I’m fine. I’ll see you on the top floor.”
Our eyes both scan up toward the roof of the burning building.
“The gas line’s been shut off, but this building is old and not well maintained. It’s a mess in there, Asher,” Quinn offers.
“Good job they brought in the cleaners then,” I reply, my steely demeanor returning.
Then the sound of metal clanging echoes again—clang, clang, clang—and my eye twitches.
I try to take a step, but my body refuses to cooperate. The memory of Maddy hits me like a wave. The ache I shouldn’t feel—and definitely cannot acknowledge—stills me.
I cannot move.
I must move.
I turn my head away from the source of the noise and focus instead on the carnage that awaits me inside the building. I welcome the agonizing wails. I feast on their hopeless cries; their pain soothes my dark heart.
Quinn places his hand on my shoulder, and the contact brings me back to the present moment. I walk closer to the intoxicating madness lying in wait inside the burning building. I do what I’ve done countless times before—I bury Maddy once again.
She was never mine anyway. Can’t lay to rest what you never truly held in the first place.
As I cross the threshold, the oppressive heat pushes in on me immediately, thick and unrelenting.
Smoke crawls along the ceiling. This should be a routine reaping.
I have walked into burning buildings more times than I care to count.
I learned long ago how to move through fire without letting it spark anything within me.
But my past keeps coming back to life here now.
I grimace as I feel an odd sensation wash over my body.
I pause just inside the doorway, forcing myself to ignore the sensations my mind is conjuring.
They aren’t real; I’m just lost in my head.
The pain I’m feeling isn’t real. It’s nothing but a memory.
Still, I feel it. My skin is tight and hot, as though I were being consumed by the flames once more.
“Get your shit together,” I growl to myself. Now isn’t the time to lose control. Focus on the job.
I catalog the scene—narrow corridor with peeling wallpaper, floorboards already blackened and soft in places.
I move down the hall, keeping close to the wall.
The fire crackles nearby, devouring more of the structure with greedy efficiency.
I recognize the sound; the wood is giving way under pressure.
The sizzling embers bring back forgotten moments from my long-buried life. As I navigate through the smoke and haze, both literally and figuratively, I enter a room filled with screaming souls. Crossing the threshold, I pull Ifaísteio from my side and set to work.
Memories fade as my mind becomes focused on the task at hand, and my body moves with muscle memory. I find release in the repetition, drawing power from their pain. It is better to marvel at their suffering from the outside than to confront the bitter pain buried within.
My reaper vision allows me to see through the dense smoke and licking flames. I spot a man losing a battle with a door. His soul glows in my sight, still tethered to his body by fragile threads.
Slice.
The threads sever, and I watch his soul separate from his body. I then move to another room, finding a couple clinging to each other in a bed engulfed in flames. Their souls and bodies intertwine in both screams and an embrace.
Slice. Slice.
I ascend through the building, separating souls from their blazing bodies with mechanical precision. Through the floorboards, a wispy soul snakes upward and slowly dissipates. Quinn must be hard at work below me. The soul moans, his spectral face disoriented and in shock.
A moment ago, he was connected to his body, feeling nothing but agonizing pain. Now, he’s decoupled from this realm and feels nothing at all. Quinn’s eerie whistling cuts through the air somewhere below—a steady, uneven rhythm that keeps me anchored to something resembling normalcy.