Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties #2)(55)

A crash behind them made her jump.

They both swung around to find Lowe crouching inside a cloud of dust in front of the cabinet. His coat was pulled up over his face.

“What in God’s name?” Trotter shouted.

Hadley’s pulse hammered inside her temples. She spied Lowe snatching up something from the broken shards on the floor and stuffing it inside his coat. He’d gotten the crossbar.

“I don’t know what happened,” Lowe said, waving away ash as he stood. “It slipped off the shelf.”

“Oh my lord, my lord,” Trotter said, reaching for a shard. “My father would never forgive me—this is terrible. Just terrible.”

“I’m so sorry.” Lowe glanced around the room, searching. “I’ll compensate you.”

“How?” Trotter stood, a look of fury tightening his face. “Just how in heavens do you plan on doing that? This can’t be repaired. And you are stepping on my aunt’s remains!”

Lowe gingerly stepped out of the ash pile, shaking out his pant legs and kicking his heels against the floor. “Let me give you the three hundred I’d offered previously.”

“Your money won’t fix this.” The man was verging on hysterics.

Lowe reached for his wallet. “But it’s a start, yes?”

A floorboard creaked above Hadley’s head. Was someone upstairs? She glanced at the ceiling and spotted something dripping onto the floor. Something dark and viscous. It pooled on the cement in the middle of the room as a burning stench filled her nostrils. A strange heat warmed her back. She swiveled around to see a ball of flames shoot from the oven and arrow across the brick wall until it leapt on the pool of black liquid.

Uh-oh.

She watched in horror as flames roared, climbing several feet high in a flash. But this wasn’t a simple fire. The strange inferno coalesced into a distinctly human shape—a shape which took a step forward, detaching itself from the floor, a fiery shadow come to life.

Like something out of an infernal hellscape, a behemoth of a figure solidified before them. A female. One that was a good two feet taller than Lowe, with tree-trunk legs and shoulders as big as a barge. The giantess stood in the center of the room, a monstrosity of blackened naked flesh with fire licking around its shoulders, hands, and feet.

In place of a human head was the head of a lion.

Hadley’s academic mind put two and two together and vaguely recollected seeing photographs of ancient statues bearing lion heads. They all belonged to the Egyptian goddess of fire, Sekhmet.

The creature’s back arched as she took a step toward Lowe, shaking the crematorium trolley with her heavy footfall. And that’s when Hadley saw what fueled it. Hairline cracks in the creature’s skin glowed with orange light, like lava flowing beneath furrowed dry earth. They spelled out some sort of hieroglyphic message—a spell, she reckoned, just like the one on the flesh of the griffin.

Not a goddess, but a magical replica of one.

Mr. Trotter screamed like a child. Lowe merely groaned and reached inside his jacket. But instead of pulling out his curved dagger, he retrieved a pistol.

The gun’s report cracked through the air. The bullet went right through the fire giant and exploded the bricks a few inches from Hadley’s arm. She shouted and stumbled against the cremation trolley, life flashing before her eyes.

“Shit!” Lowe shouted.

Mr. Trotter ducked behind the trolley, using it as a shield. Useless, cowardly man. So much for their passionate funerary bond.

“Shoot it in the heart! In the heart!” she shouted at Lowe, then added, “But don’t kill me in the process!”

Lowe shifted his stance, backing up and rotating his aim.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

He unloaded three bullets into the creature’s torso, and all of them embedded into the wall near Hadley, showering Mr. Trotter’s head with brick dust.

Whatever the creature was, it was different than the griffin. Not only did it make no sound, but at the bullet wounds, where there should be blood, a black substance oozed down its muscles.

The silent creature lunged for Lowe with a fiery hand and grabbed his shoulder. Lowe cried out. Flames erupted over the front of his coat as he growled and tore away from the monster’s hold. The giantess faltered, losing her footing while Lowe stumbled backward and fell against Trotter’s desk—

On fire! Lowe was on fire!

He flung off his hat and wildly slapped at the flames rippling over his arm.

Hadley sprinted for the cremation sink and twisted the rusty handle. Pipes creaked. Liquid spiraled through the rubber hose attached to the tap. She grabbed the end and aimed it toward Lowe. A spray of water arced through the air and doused Lowe in the eyes.

He jerked his head away and shouted obscenities in Swedish. Quickly redirecting her aim, she soaked his clothes and doused the flames.

“Not me!” he shouted as he hurdled himself over the desk. “Her!”

The creature made a grab across the desk, setting a stack of files on fire. Hadley increased the water pressure with a thumb covering half the hose’s opening and pointed the spray at the giant’s face. Flames sizzled and popped. Steam rose.

It was working!

“Brilliant!” Lowe shouted. “Keep it up!”

The creature shuddered, twisting her neck back unnaturally as the water extinguished flames on one side of her head. A foul stench swept through the room, like wet cat and burned grease. Hadley’s mind conjured the image of a rotting animal corpse being roasted on a spit, fur and all. And some chemical note lay beneath it, like a car overheating.