* * *
After dinner,the two of them returned to the shop and snuffed the lanterns and candles. The rumble of Amity’s purr echoed from under the table.
“I can’t believe she’s still here,” said Tandri.
“I’m sure she’ll be gone before dawn.”
Viv hoped not, though.
“Maybe Cal will decide to sleep over, too, tomorrow? We’re short of blankets, though.” She waited for Tandri to ascend the ladder first.
They revisited that serene, gentle quiet they’d briefly shared that morning, and undressed. Viv found herself looking away as Tandri did.
They fell asleep back-to-back, comfortable and easy and warm.
* * *
Yowling shocked Viv awake,along with a heavy thud against her belly. Her eyes flew open as Amity’s enormous skull butted her again.
“Wh–what?” Tandri mumbled.
“Get up!” Viv sprang to her feet, inhaling deeply. There was a smell in the air she couldn’t quite place, acrid, but still faint.
The dire-cat lashed her tail and paced anxiously to the top of the ladder. Viv spared a thought for how impressive a leap that must have been. Then it dawned on her that she could see the animalfarbetter than she should have been able to. At first, she thought the faint light was from the moon, but the color was all wrong.
It was a pale, corpse-fire green. And it was growing brighter.
“What’s thatsmell?” said Tandri, as she snatched up her clothes and held them against her chest.
Viv didn’t bother with hers. “Nothing good.” As she rushed to the ladder, the dire-cat leapt down first. Viv grabbed a rafter and leaned out, grimacing when she saw tongues of spectral green flame licking at the frame of the big double doors and spreading fast. Strangely, there was almost no smoke. Then, with a thick, crackling sound, the flames sheeted up the doors like a waterfall in reverse.
“Shit! Hurry! It’s fire! The bastard lit the building onfire!”
“We have to put it out!” cried Tandri.
Viv hoisted the woman off her feet. Tandri gasped in surprise and almost dropped her clothes as Viv scooped her other arm under Tandri’s legs and leapt to the floor below.
Tandri grunted, rattled by the impact.
Viv set her down and looked around the corner into the kitchen. That door was also aflame, and little ribbons of fire crept up the wall behind the stove and over toward the pantry.
A piercing snap resounded from above as the pressure in the room changed, and then green poured across the ceiling like blood down a blade. She heard brittle, sharp cracks as the roof tiles burst like popping corn.
“That isn’t normal fire,” said Tandri, raising her voice to be heard over the roar of the flames, her eyes wide and panicked.
A normal fire smoked, but this one burned clean and pungent as incense.
“It isn’t. We have to get you out of here. Now.”
“Me? What aboutus?”
Amity yowled plaintively, then hissed like a teakettle. She crouched near the big table, shying away from showering sparks.
Viv had already waited too long. Much longer, and her options would dwindle to zero. There was no telling how hot this unnatural fire might burn or what might extinguish it. If, indeed, anythingwould.
She dashed to the water barrel in the kitchen, the heat already intense from where the wall burned. The metal on the stove was beginning to throb red. Steam rose from the barrel.Muchhotter than a regular blaze.
Viv scooped up a few of Thimble’s mixing bowls, dredged them one by one through the water bucket, and tossed the water toward the front door, now alive with sheets of flame.
