CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

The Incinerator and The Doctor

Sabrina screamed as she fell and I watched to see Christian and Max catch her. However, the sun was rising in the sky and I didn’t have all day before someone noticed that something weird was going on at The Lazy Hammock Hotel. I had to get a move on.

“When you were spying on this place, did you ever see The Incinerator?” I asked Rhuk.

“Yeah,” it whispered in my ear.

“Is he nearby?”

“That will take a minute to calculate.”

I went to the second floor. I had asked Rhuk to focus on The Incinerator. I did not expect Dr. Bobby to be waiting for me in the stairwell.

He was very blond and wore a suit instead of a lab coat the same way he had in the prison. He had a scar through his eyebrow and another one on his lip, but he didn’t have any burn marks that I could see. He couldn’t be very much older than Charles. He was Dr. Hilliar’s heir. It was like that joke where the old lady offers everything she has to her granddaughter, but it’s nothing but plastic bags filled with other plastic bags. Nothing but emptiness because his inheritance was nothing.

“Hello,” I said to him cheerfully, bouncing my red curls. “The locks on your doors stick a bit. You should call someone in to get that fixed.”

He took out a handgun and pointed it at me. From the look on his face, he didn’t know who I was. He was confused and angry, but he was the sort of man who thought before he spoke. He blocked the door to the second floor with his body while he took a full ten seconds to voice his conclusion, “You are the woman Graham went out to dinner with?”

“Don’t you mean Charles? Those words are a bit strong to describe our meeting. We didn’t eat and I’m already bored. Do you want to get out of my way?”

“Don’t you see my gun?” he rasped, pitting his rage against my audacity.

“I see it, but it seems sort of childish after all the explosives. Doesn’t it make more sense for you to back off and let me try my luck with them? They’re more threatening than you are.”

He pulled his mouth into an ugly line and aimed the gun at my head.

I yawned. It was quite a good one as it stretched on to accentuate my boredom. It was several seconds before I was ready to respond. “Okay, you’re pointing a gun at me. You have the power. What do you want me to do?”

While he thought, I got Rhuk to rearrange the matter in the barrel of the gun so that the bullet wouldn’t be able to fire. Rhuk finished before Dr. Bobby was able to formulate a plan.

I dropped my hands. “While you’re thinking, I’m going to go get Carl and Mara.” I stepped forward and as I got close to him, I whispered, “I wouldn’t fire that if I were you.”

I got one step down the second-floor hallway when he pushed the gun against the back of my skull and demanded, “Where’s Charles?”

“Didn’t he come back?” I prattled, playing innocent.

Dr. Bobby cocked his gun. “Where is he?”

“I don’t exactly know where people go when they die. Would you care to join him? Figure out the mystery?” I flashed my hazel eyes at him in a warning.

He went to hit me in the back of the head with his gun. “Why aren’t you scared?” he shouted as he swung.

I kicked him in the gut. When he fell to the floor, I strode down the hall like he didn’t matter to me and approached the room Mara was kept in.

On the floor, Bobby pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger. The back of the gun exploded in his face. He had been using the sights to aim, and several pieces hit him in the face. An especially large piece got him just over the eye and he bled in horrifying red lines.

“I told you not to fire that,” I said as I finished with the bomb on the door. I was getting faster at it.

Inside, Mara had been listening at the door. When I opened it, she was terrified. “Who are you?” she wheezed.

I ignored her question.

The doctor had risen from his feet and was limping toward the stairwell he and I had just vacated. Dizzy, his feet moved awkwardly as he tried to walk in a straight line. He went down the stairs by gripping the handrail.

“Are there any bombs on the rail?” I asked Rhuk in my head.

“I disabled them,” Rhuk answered silently.

“Can I help you get that gaudy necklace off?” I offered.

Mara was confused as I went behind her and looked at the bomb.

“This one and the one around Carl’s neck are the same as the one that was around Indra’s neck. I can disable them. I’ve actually already removed Carl’s. He won’t remember when it came off,” Rhuk whispered.

It fell off Mara.

“Thank you,” she said, perplexed.

“Mara. I’m going to get Carl and I need you to wait here.” I left her there, gaping and confused.

I made it to Carl’s door when Rhuk told me, “The Incinerator has arrived. He’s outside. The doctor managed to come in without me noticing, but The Incinerator is talking to Christian outside.”

“Christian…” I repeated quietly. My darling was not perfectly invulnerable. He didn’t even have a heart inside him. “We have to hurry.”

I opened Carl’s door faster than any of the others. He was in the bed and he was recovering from burns just as Rhuk had said. I approached. I wasn’t going to be able to get him to move. He was burned everywhere. His injuries were not invisible like Sabrina’s. If I healed him, that would be something visible that everyone would see and know about for years to come. It would be more proof that there were people in the world who defied nature. There would be more people like Dr. Bobby, and more hostages like Carl. More.

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I knelt on the floor next to the bed.

“Carl? Can you hear me?”

He rasped a breath through swollen lips. He made a sound, though it did not contain any recognizable words.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t let any more chaos happen outside. If The Incinerator was there, anything could happen. Max and Sabrina could be hurt. Brandon might lose his bag with my heart inside. Immortal people were not always invincible, Christian was outside and he was more vulnerable than he had ever been. If he died, I would not be able to do a thing about it.

But the angry burns on the man in front of me could not be whisked away without a lot of notice. I was uncertain what to do,

Rhuk noticed my dilemma and whispered in my ear, “Even if you decide to heal him, he won’t accept it. He told them everything he could about Max. He is very ashamed. Throw him over your shoulder and walk him out.”

“Rhuk, can you see into his soul?” I asked.

“No. I just watched this place for a while and learned a few things. He mutters about it constantly, both when he is asleep and when he is awake. He needs much more than physical healing.”

I got Rhuk to tug on Carl’s clothes to lift as much of his weight off me as possible as I hoisted him over my shoulders.

“Mara, come into the hall. I have your brother. We need to leave now.”

She joined me in the hall and we retraced my steps down the stairs and out the front door. All the bombs on that path were already disabled and we came out the doors of the hotel just fine.

I dropped to my knees and called 911 for the paramedics to collect Carl from the front of the hotel. Mara knelt and put his head in her lap.

I hung up the phone when I was finished talking to the operator. That was the second time I had called for an ambulance in the last twenty-four hours.

Everyone else was on the other side of the building, where I had broken the window. They couldn’t see us and I needed to join them.

“The ambulance should be here soon. Please go with him to the hospital, Mara, and get yourself checked out as well.”

“What about the others?” she squeaked.

“They’re out. They’re just on the other side. I’ll send them over, but if they don’t make it for some reason, please leave and go with Carl to the hospital.”

“Who are you?”

“No name today,” I called over my shoulder as I rounded the corner.

When I met the group, everyone stood stock still in front of a man who had enough explosives attached to his chest to blow up half a city block. Everyone, even Dr. Bobby, stood with their hands in the air submissively as The Incinerator yelled things at them.

“Rhuk, cut the wiring,” I instructed.

With that done, I approached slowly in a sidewinding walk. “Hi,” I said noisily.

“Get your hands in the air!” The Incinerator shouted threateningly, but rather than being repulsed, I was enchanted. He was insanely good-looking. Brown hair, striking blue eyes so blue they made the morning sky look white.

I whistled a catcall at him before calling to Christian. “Are you seeing this guy’s face? I hope you’re taking notes.”

My lover rolled his eyes and kept his hands in the air with the others.

I whistled at The Incinerator again. “Could you turn around for us? I think we’d all benefit from a really good look at your bone structure.”

The Incinerator looked like he was going to explode without the benefit of any of the bombs strapped to his chest. “Shut up!” he snapped, but I kept walking forward.

“Is that your real face?” I asked, getting almost close enough to touch him. “Or is that a show? Very good show if it’s fake. How old are you?”

He looked aghast. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re interrupting.”

“Oh? Are you telling them your demands? Go ahead. I’ll wait here.”

“No, you’ll get back or I’ll blow myself up and all of them.”

I stood my ground. “I’m not moving, but I’m very interested in what you want. Please continue.”

“I want Sabrina to come with me. I don’t care about whatever Dr. Bobby has been doing, but I want Sabrina. Come here,” he called, “or everyone dies.”

He was in love with her! That’s why there had been no working bomb on her collar.

I put a hand on my hip and motioned for her to stay put. “I’m fine with the second option. Go ahead and press your detonator.”

“You think I’m bluffing?” he hollered at me so hard he blew spit at me.

“Not at all. You seem like a very serious guy to me. I want you to have the satisfaction of killing all of us if that’s what you want. A guy as good-looking as you should have everything he wants.” My tone was so sugary it made me a bit sick, but I stuck to it.

“You don’t know anything about me!” he howled.

“Sure, sure,” I agreed.

“I haven’t gotten what I want very often.”

“Yes, but did you come by that face naturally or what?”

“Why do you keep asking about my face?”

I took another step closer to him. “How desperate have you been to change your fate? Desperate enough that you… maybe made a few discoveries Dr. Bobby didn’t make? Have you been spying on him? Maybe you have been working on all that facial perfection for a while and we’re just getting to see the final version?”

He recoiled slightly. “Why are you asking me about my face? I’ve always looked this way.”

“Press the button,” I said, getting even closer to The Incinerator and meeting his eyes dangerously.

He hesitated, so I reached over and pressed his accursed button for him. Something did go off, but a mild explosion compared to what could have happened. He flew backward and landed on his back a few feet from me.

“Rhuk,” I complained. “I said to disarm it.”

“I know. I was supposed to disable it, but you want to know if he’s immortal, don’t you? A little injury is just what the doctor ordered.”

I wanted to facepalm myself. Rhuk had performed the cut test.

At least, The Incinerator was hurt. I had to deal with things in the correct order. I turned to the others. “Max, your brother and sister are out front. He’s badly hurt and an ambulance is on the way. If you want to see them before they go to the hospital...” The sound of the sirens interrupted us. “Better hurry.”

Brandon was talking quietly to Indra. She was nodding and bouncing slightly on her toes. In the next moment, she was throwing her arms around his neck and still jumping.

Christian had grabbed Max by the sleeve and said a few choice words to him. Christian had spoken to him while I pulled apart the puzzle that was The Lazy Hammock Hotel. He said his final words to Max before the man went to check on his siblings.

I turned to The Incinerator. The explosion had been in the middle of his chest. He lay on his back, laboring with his breathing. I dropped to my knees and unbuckled the straps holding the explosives to his chest.

“Rhuk,” I said silently. “As soon as the area around the building is clear, I want you to blow it up. You don’t need to reattach any of the bombs that you disarmed. Just set off whatever is remaining. I don’t know how much harm it will do, but I like to be annoying.”

Once I had The Incinerator’s chest exposed, I saw his skin mend itself at an electric speed. However, he had yet to see the sword in my chest.

Christian approached, a grim expression on his face. “Our people are rarely ugly.”

“What do you normally do with someone like this?” I asked, still bending over the passed-out arsonist.

“I don’t normally do anything. Whatever. We have to go.”

“Are we going to leave him?” I asked, rising to my feet.

It was then that I noticed Dr. Bobby, lying on the ground. He wasn’t dead. He had lost a lot of blood from his head injury and he still had broken bits of the gun in his hand.

“Yeah…” I said. “It is time to go.”

The Incinerator’s eyelashes fluttered open just as I was turning away.

I leaned down and said, “If you keep this face, I’ll come to find you in a year. I’ll give you a chance to explain then. For now, you should run.”

I raced to the car, to catch up with Brandon and Indra. Once inside the car, Christian drove us away from The Lazy Hammock Hotel. When we’d put a bit of space between us and the scene of the crime, Rhuk set off the remaining bombs and the hotel went up in flames. I didn’t know if the ambulance staff noticed Dr. Bobby on the ground, bleeding.

I glanced back at him and unless I was mistaken, I saw him breathe his last breath.