Page 197 of Sinister

As Sin and I watch, open-mouthed in shock, the flying flame lands splat at the base of the mausoleum.

Instantly, flames start licking hungrily at the ancient stone, and as more torches are thrown onto the blazing pyre, the fire starts spreading, climbing the ivy-inked walls and setting the perimeter ablaze.

“They’re torching the place!” Sin exclaims—why he sounds surprised, I cannot tell—and grabs my hand. “We need to get out now!”

His words jolt me out of the terror-stricken reverie I had fallen into, but my feet seem rooted to the spot.

“Petra!” I hear Sin shouting, but my eyes are focused on the face of Edwin’s father. The smoldering fire casts flickering shadows across his features, and I can see the hatred glinting in his eyes.

At this moment, even if he knew that Sin and I are trapped inside the mausoleum . . . he might not care.

In fact, knowing that Sin is related to Arnoult the First, this mob might even have come prepared to torch any Arnoults that might get caught in the crossfire.

“Petra, we’ve got to run!” Sin is shaking my shoulders, and the flames are spreading rapidly; the stone walls seem to be radiating heat now. Outside, the mob’s chants grow to a feverish pitch as wild ululations rend the air.

“No more will you desecrate our town with your evil!” Edwin’s father shouts in a high-pitched voice. “No more will you tear apart our children, our innocents! Die in this fire, you mongrel hellion!”

“Petra, please.” Somehow, I seem to have stepped outside my body, because at this point Sin pulls me away from the window quite easily. “We have to find a way out. Quickly!”

Away from the sight of Edwin’s father, who is still demented with sorrow and still shouting, I can finally regain some sense of my surroundings.

Immediately, I start coughing and blinking water away from my eyes as the flames smack us in the face. The smoke begins to fill up the air, and the heat intensifies.

“What the fuck’s happening, Sin?” I finally yell out. “And where do we go? The entrance is blocked!”

“There’s another way,” Sin replies, shouting in my ears while his eyes dart around.

“What way?” I shout back over the sound of stones cracking in heat and flames roaring. I start coughing more because of the thick, acrid smoke filling up the room.

Unbidden, an image flashes across my mind: Benny Truman on fire and cannonballing into Elias Rutherford’s swimming pool. The night that everything had changed.

Man, that seems like ages ago, my annoying inner voice says in my head.

“Burn the sinners! Cleanse the darkness!” the mob continues their chant, their voices melding together in an ugly, hateful melody.

“Sin, it’s getting too hot. We need to move!”

He nods and grabs me by the arm. “Stay close to me. We will find a way out.”

The flames have been eating through the wooden beams, which start cracking and hissing as the last of their sap sizzles in the heat.

Sin holds my hand tightly and starts moving in some direction.

All I know is that I have to put one step in front of the other—even when the heat seems to morph into a tangible blanket smothering us, and pressing against us, even when I can feel a flame lick my ankle or a small ember graze the sleeve of my Valentino shirt, burning a clean hole through it but thankfully leaving my skin intact.

As the smoke thickens, stinging my eyes and clogging my throat, we keep moving.

“This way!” Sin shouts, dragging me toward the back of the mausoleum, away from the blaze, but the heat always seems to be just one step behind, and always gaining, always getting closer.

My breathing sounds ragged, and my vision starts to blur.

“Sin, stop,” I wheeze. “I can’t . . . I can’t breathe.”

Sin’s grip on my hand tightens, and he pulls me closer to him, placing his jacket over my head and shoulders, creating a temporary shelter with his whole body.

“Petra, focus on my voice. We’re getting out of here!”

I finally realize that he’s been leading us back toward the tombs. With a few more steps, we manage to clamber out of the thick smog spreading through the mausoleum, and I see that we have stopped right in front of Arnoult the First’s tomb.