The Black Coats(81)

“Never.”

He held her tight. “I’m sorry I thought you needed saving. Apparently, that was me.”

Thea pressed her nose against his, free in a way that she had never been. “I’ll save you anytime, Drew Porter.”

“Isn’t this sweet?” Julie spoke out of the darkness above, completely unhinged. She was on the second level, leering over the balcony at them as they stared up at her. “You’ve found love while ruining the legacy of this house. You kiss that boy while standing on the bones of women who have gone and fought before you.” She cackled. “You’ve almost done me a favor, Thea. This house has become disappointing to me. I’ve been looking for a sign, and here it is: one of Nixon’s recruits standing in the house I built, kissing the son of a police officer who will take us down. Smiling as she destroys the Black Coats of Austin. You’ve disappointed me, but perhaps this is a much needed sign that it’s time to move on.”

Thea opened her mouth to scream as Julie raised a glass lantern over her head, but it was too late. With a cry she hurled it down toward them. They leaped backward, narrowly avoiding the plumes of fire and glass that exploded across the floor. Another lantern followed, and then another, the gas in the lanterns fueling the blaze. Thea watched as the stairs—and their only way out—were swallowed up in a hungry rush of scorching flame.

When they looked up again, Julie was gone, and in her place thick black smoke curled up the walls. Drew yanked her back, away from the flames blasting her cheeks. “Thea! Come on!” She wrapped her hand around Drew’s, and then they were sprinting away, Thea’s head whipping around in time to see Julie toss three more lanterns down, each one releasing a liquid pool of crackling gold that spread across the floor. “Go, go, go!” Drew shouted.

The old wood of Mademoiselle Corday caught fast, and in seconds the flames had jumped from the wall to the ceiling. The black wood started to smoke and crumble as the fire grew. Above them, the grand staircase was catching. This house, thought Thea, is essentially tinder. Another lantern exploded when the flame reached it, sending shards of burning glass outward. “Run!”

“Where?” screamed Drew. Everything was burning now. The searing heat pushed them back like a physical blast, black smoke billowing around Thea, in her lungs, in her eyes. Julie had expertly trapped them; they were in the hallway of the classrooms, which Thea knew were windowless for secrecy reasons. She covered her mouth and tried not to inhale the hell that encompassed them and felt like it was melting her lungs. Everything was ash and smoke and hot flame; it raced across the ceiling toward them. There was no escape, no windows except . . .

“Follow me!” Thea pulled Drew inside the wide wooden doors and into the library. Blistering flame had already begun crawling its way through the old books on the north wall, the violently whipping fire having made its way across the floor. Pulling Drew behind her, Thea sprinted up the small staircase as the heat started melting the mirrors in the sitting room, the glass becoming pools of mercury running down the walls. They were going up then, away from the fire.

“Thea! This door has a lock on it!”

“I know!” Thea bent forward, typing frantically on the keypad. 481542. The keypad buzzed, and a red light appeared. Thea entered it again. 481542. Red again. “They changed it. Oh God, of course they did.”

Thea could feel hysteria building in her. She was going to burn to death because she couldn’t get the door open. The fire began to crackle at the bottom of the staircase, the books on either side of them burning, their pages lifting into the sky. There was so much smoke.

“I’m sorry, Drew, I’m so sorry.”

Drew dropped her hand and took a few steps back from the door. “Don’t start that. Don’t start the death speech. I am not going to die—” Bam! His muscular legs kicked against the door. “In this—” Bam! He backed up again. “FUCKING RIDICULOUS HOUSE!” he screamed finally as he ran at the door. Bam! At his impact, the door began to splinter on its frame. Drew took a step back and got a running start, this time his foot landing near the keypad. The door shuddered and flew open. “Sometimes, you just do things the old-fashioned way.” He gasped as a flaming book page landed on his arm.

“Shut the door!” Thea yelled.

“It won’t buy us much time!” Drew answered, but he obeyed. He whipped off his shirt and stuffed it into the crack under the door.

“Welcome to the records room,” uttered Thea, the filing cabinets lined up from end to end. Drew slumped against the door when he saw the thick panes of glass and the cool night sky beyond them, their salvation so close and yet so far. Under their feet the ground was growing hot, insatiable flames engulfing the house crumbling beneath them. Thea threw the curtains aside. “You’re not going to like this.” There it was. The bomb.

Drew blinked as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing: red cords plugged into a blinking gray monitor, bound to the window latch. Lines of copper tubing, wires. “Can we go through them?” He motioned to the thick windows to the left of the bomb. “Break them?”

Thea shook her head. “The glass, it’s that thick antique stuff, but we could try.” Smoke burned her eyes.

Suddenly, there was a loud crack and the ground beneath their feet shifted, sending them both sprawling to the floor. The body of the filing cabinet began slowly sinking into the floor beneath it as tendrils of flame started licking their way up. The house gave another shudder as Thea crawled toward the window.