Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(65)

“We sniff them,” T. Laine said, “listen to them. How is this different?”

Soul tilted her head. Her platinum silver hair slid forward and she caught it with a hand and smoothed it, as if it was alive. “It is not illegal, evil, or against PsyLED protocols. Nor will it harm the child. Will it?”

I scowled at her. “This feels wrong. Churchmen think it’s okay to do things to children too.”

T. Laine’s eyes went big and startled.

“Just a surface read,” Soul urged. “Just deep enough for us to know if Devin is human.”

Devin Tolliver. That was his name. And they wanted me to invade him. It made me feel squirmy inside and my rooty middle ached.

“Hello? Can I have some water?” a plaintive voice called.

The kid. Awake. I narrowed my eyes at Soul. She tapped her ear, indicating that the child had been trying to listen to us. She made a shooing motion to me. I pushed out of my chair and stood, glaring around the table to show them that I thought this was invasive and a personal assault on the kid. Soul just shooed me on again, hands waving.

I turned on a heel and left for the break room. “Hey, Devin,” I said, going to the sink. “I’ll get you some water.”

“Thanks. Can I have my cell and play some games?”

I poured water into a paper cup and carried it to the couch. The smell of fire was much stronger here, fire and gasoline and scorched hair and something musky and sour like burned flesh. Rather than pull up the upholstered chair in the corner, I knelt on the floor by the couch and gave him the cup. “Your cell was lost in the fire,” I said gently, knowing he had lost much more than a cell phone in the fire that took his aunt’s life.

“Oh,” he said, and I couldn’t interpret his emotional reaction to the mention of the fire. He wrapped his hands around the cup and lifted it to his mouth, drinking the contents down. He blew a breath and said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Devin, may I check your head for fever?” And I felt like a fiend. This was wrong. But if Devin was a paranormal, and if we could figure out what he was, then we might also figure out who was after the Tollivers and killing people. This was important. This was necessary. It was also a rationalization. I hated justifications. Hated them.

Devin nodded. I touched his head. It was unexpectedly cool when I had been prepared for sleep-sweaty and hot. I closed my eyes and let my consciousness flow down through my body and into Devin.

I was met with cool energy, gray and . . . It wasn’t the right word, but he was chatoyant, as if a band of bright light reflected through him, the way light carried through stone. Or, better, perhaps, the way light carried through river water, reflecting on the dappled bottom, gold and green and gray and blue, with faint purple places, all glowing. I followed the light deeper.

I heard the word, “No!”

Devin jerked away from me and I cascaded back into the break room. Tumbled to the side, to the floor. Blinking up at the child.

“No!” he said again. “Stop that! You’re a bad person.” Heat blasted at me. Sizzling, ripping flame. I dove to the side. Rolled to my bottom, sitting on the floor beside the couch. Disoriented enough that I put both hands on the vinyl tile floor, to stabilize myself. “I’m sorry, Devin,” I said. “I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t touch me!” he shrieked. Another blast, this one hotter. Scorching along my skin. Blistering, roasting. I screamed. Smelled burning hair and leaves. Burning me. I rolled away, to the far side of the room. Covering my head. Screaming. Noting in the instant when I closed my eyes and tucked tight that the flames were orange tinged with purple.





ELEVEN




The tingle of magic was everywhere—in the air, on my skin, in my hair, in the breaths I took. Blessed pure air, cold and rich and heavy with moisture and magic, flooded my lungs. I gulped and realized that I was crying. I was hurt. I was burned.

I fought to open my eyes, my lashes gummed together. I opened them a slit, intensely grateful that I could see through the tangled lashes and the tears. My hands were curled up near my face and the skin was weeping, blistered, and stinging. I blinked and looked around. I was in the hallway outside of the break room and T. Laine was sitting on the floor beside me. “It’s okay,” she said. “The fire’s out. The kid’s out. We’re safe.”

I was gasping, hyperventilating, and I knew it but I couldn’t stop. T. Laine’s face was creased with worry; Soul stood in the break room, standing guard over Devin, looking angry and guilty. And worried. And in shock. At herself? At something else? I had a fleeting thought that her emotions were turned inward and had little to do with what had just happened to me. Then that thought slid away with the pain.

“How?” I whispered, and my voice croaked.

“I keep my null weapons charged and on me at all times,” she said. “Remember?”

As the unit’s resident witch, T. Laine had the tools to stop most magical attacks and the ability to use them. “My hero,” I whispered, straining to see into the break room.

The tile where I had been kneeling was smoldering, wisps of smoke still rising. I touched my head and encountered hair, happy it hadn’t been singed. My face hurt and I touched my cheeks. They were burned, blistered, the pain more than I could define. “Ohhh. Oh, oh, oh,” I whispered, blinking. And then I remembered what she had said: The kid’s out. Null spells didn’t knock people out. “You didn’t hit him, did you?” My voice sounded less husky, but it hurt to talk.