Page 81 of Backwoods
Amiya grinned savagely. “I. Am. Not. Your. Lady!”
She thrust the can toward him, sending a shimmering arc of kerosene in his direction. The fluid spattered his face, the front of his tuxedo, and the surrounding rug. Westbrook scowled as if he’d tasted something foul.
Amiya lit a match and tossed it toward him.
He burst into flames like a tallow candle. He shrieked, and it was a terrible sound she’d never heard issue from anyone: like a screaming chorus of dying souls. Blindly, he stumbled into a wall. The wallpaper caught fire, crackling and smoking.
Amiya liberally saturated the rest of the bedroom and got out of there.
She went from one room to the next. Soon, she had emptied one can. She twisted open the other and continued to work through the vacant rooms. Foul-smelling black smoke poisoned the air. Flames crawled across the floors, walls, and ceilings as she backed toward the head of the staircase.
Downstairs, she heard someone scream. She turned, sweat dripping from her brow.
The Overseer had arrived. He loomed at the bottom of the staircase. All around him, flames danced, and smoke twisted about him in serpent-like tendrils.
Amiya dropped the kerosene, put her hand to her mouth.
It was Nick . . . but it wasn’t. He wore the clothing of a prior era, and the clothes fit his slender frame as if they had been tailored especially for him. But the true difference was in his eyes. He looked at her as if he didn’t recognize her at all. The soul of the man she loved had to be buried somewhere in that body, but it was hidden behind a mask of hatred and rage.
“You must be marked,” he said.
He lifted the glowing branding iron.
He ascended the steps toward her.
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The woman would be a fine addition to his collection. The Overseer thought he needed to mind where he marked her, as he didn’t want to spoil her beauty, but mark her he would, and then he would turn her over to the master for his carnal pleasure.
She stood frozen at the top of the staircase. Curtains of flames rippled and flapped at her back. The growing conflagration concerned the Overseer. He had once perished in such a fire at the plantation. He had risen again . . . but only with the assistance of the ancient ones, the silent watchers who fed on the pain that he so skillfully dispensed.
The woman, however, unmarked and free, was so irresistible that he set aside his caution and ascended toward her.
Tears spilled down her soot-covered cheeks. Her crying gave the Overseer a charge of pleasure.
“You will never run away,” the Overseer said.
As the Overseer reached for her, she struck a match and thrust her hand toward him. She had some sort of item in her fist. Something with a glowing wick.
She stuck it into his jacket.
“I love you, Nick,” she said.
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Burying that sizzling, hand-crafted firecracker in Nick’s jacket was an act of pure desperation on Amiya’s part. She didn’t know what it would accomplish, if anything. At best, she hoped it might provide a distraction to allow her to escape the burning mansion.
“I love you, Nick,” she had said, and had never meant the declaration more than she did then.
At the mention of his name, dull recognition flickered in his eyes. He stopped his hand, the branding iron so close to her cheek that she could feel its flesh-searing heat.
“Babe?” he asked, as if waking from a dream.
The firecracker exploded with a searing flash of light and sound. Nick’s eyes went wide, his consciousness fully restored—but he lost his balance on the steps. The branding iron dropped from his fingers. Nick tumbled like a log down the long spiral staircase.
Praying that he would be okay, Amiya hurried down the steps after him. Grandpa Lee came around the corner of the newel post at the bottom of the staircase. The old man was drenched in sweat, and it looked as if flames had singed his beard.
Both of them went to Nick. Nick lay on the last few steps, head turned to the side. He wore his normal clothes again, but there was a dark spot on his abdomen, a stain of blood and charred clothing.
