The Hacienda(88)

I bolted.

With each of my steps the torch grew closer to the ground; I was on the other side of the carpet, on floorboards that were dry, stumbling into the stench of—

The torch struck the carpet.

Flame exploded: blue and white, like lightning. It devoured the rug and shot to the sides of the room, engulfing it in seconds. When it reached the chests of my silks, those, too, exploded into flame: one, then the next. Any remaining glass vases shattered from the force of it.

I dropped into a crouch, shielding myself as best I could with my bound forearms.

From above, another bucket of alcohol poured into the room. Juana angled it so it splashed toward the locked door to the hall and the staircase, my only escape. I cried out as some splashed on my hair.

The flames consuming the carpet had caused the floorboards to catch flame; they licked toward the door. On the opposite end of the room, the desk began to crackle with heat. Through the rippling air, I watched as the edges of my father’s map curled, blackened, and burst into flame.

This time, there was no Mamá calling my name. There was nowhere to run.

No way to escape.

I was going to die in this house.

Foul black smoke billowed through the room, stinging my eyes and blinding me. I coughed, but each breath I sucked in was hotter than the one before. I hacked, gasping for breath, and forced myself to my feet. The air rippled; the floorboards scorched my soles as I inched closer to the bedchamber door.

I put my hand on the handle. I hissed as it scalded my palm but forced myself to try to open it.

It was locked.

I slammed a balled fist on the door in frustration, in panic. A door slammed elsewhere in the house as if in response. The darkness around me bucked and howled; wind fanned the flames higher, higher. The heat seared my cheeks; I shut my eyes against its onslaught.

Damn the house. It would whip the flames into an inferno and we would both be eaten alive. I would go first, and far more painfully—the floor would give out, and I would fall, and be buried beneath piles of flaming debris if I did not first break my neck.

“You want vengeance?” I cried out to the house. “Then take it. She’s the one who killed you, isn’t she?”

“Shut up,” Juana shouted. Creaking overhead told me she was shifting away from the hole in the ceiling. She was retreating—fire or no, she was still wary of the house’s unholy power.

Because she knew what she had done. Why the house was filled with rage. Why it called, Juana, Juana, Juana, into the darkness. Why the darkness of the house had sought Ana Luisa, her accomplice, in the night and given her a fright so powerful her heart stopped from terror.

I struck the door again. “She’s right there. Take your revenge.”

A groan shuddered through the house. Was it thunder? Was it madness and heat and smoke distorting my senses?

With a fearsome crack, the roof gave way.

Juana screamed.

She fell into the center of the flames. There was a wet snap that flipped my gut, for the instant I heard it, I knew it was not tiles or broken beams, but bone shattering.

She shifted, rose; shuddered and fell down again. A jingle of metal rang from her waist.

The keys. She had the keys.

“Juana!” I cried, then coughing seized my chest. We would both die without the keys.

The flames had seared away all the material to be burned on the rug; there was a path, of sorts, to where Juana lay crumpled amid broken wood and shattered tile.

My eyes teared with smoke as I reached to the floor and picked up a piece of broken glass. I tore at the hem of my dress with it; then, with shaking, bound hands, ripped strips of fabric away to wrap my feet. I worked clumsily, slowly, coughing all the while as black smoke filled the room. It would kill me before the flames did, I was sure of it.

You’ll die here like the rest of us.

No. Not tonight.

I walked toward her, using my bound hands to cover my mouth with the last piece of cut cloth, praying my skirts were now too short to brush the embers scattering the floor. Oh, please, dear God, don’t let the floor give way.

She looked like a broken doll, even as she forced herself up to her knees, coughing. Soot smeared her face. Her ankle was bent at a strange angle—it was broken.

My heart pounded as I looked down on her. I had called on the house to help defeat her but couldn’t let her die in here. I could not bear to leave another human being to burn alive. I couldn’t.

“Get up,” I said, hoarse from coughing. “Keys. Let’s go.”

I held out my hands to her.

She looked up at me, panting, transformed by wild fury. A flash; the movement was so quick I didn’t know what happened, not until white pain tore across my ribs.

The machete she had opened the roof with had fallen near her; she had snatched it and struck. Now it dripped with blood glinting orange in the firelight.

My blood.

Another flash; this time I dodged it. I stumbled backward, tripping on the rags that I had bound around my feet. I caught myself just before falling into a burning chest of silks.

She lurched to her feet, swaying, the machete in hand.

“This is my house. It’s your fault”—she was cut off by a fit of coughing—“for trying to take it from me. You and Catalina.” The heat rippled between us as she took a staggering lurch toward me. “You think you can come here and take what is mine? Go to hell.”