Burn chapter 3

The church was burning. That was the first thing I noticed, though admittedly that sort of thing would be hard to miss. I stood there on the rain slicked sidewalk, my hands folded neatly behind my back and my log black hair in a thick ponytail at the crown of my head. The cell phone clipped to the waistband of my jeans chirped a cheerful rendition of Barbie girl, but other than a lazy sidelong glace, I ignored it. Instead I reached one handed for the gun in the holster slung around my hips. I could hear the distant call of sirens as I crossed the street towards the church. My eyes flickered among the shadows created by the flames. When I was close enough that the heat of the fire had my face flushing I hesitated. Taking a deep breath I clicked off the safety and walked into the flames of hell. 1

******2

A pregnant woman lay dead on the floor. I could see her spirit, hovering beside her prone body, flames visible through the shimmering essence that now made up her form. She looked a little irritated as she gazed down at herself, a little confused, and a lot afraid. She met my eyes, her own now a milky white, as if she were blind widening at the sight of me. 3

“What happened here.” I kept my voice pitched low in honor of any demons still lurking about. I kept my eyes on hers however, you never could tell when a spirit would turn. The specter shrugged, her nose wrinkling delicately as her attention wandered back to the mangled mess on the floor. 4

“The demon came. Well demons more like.” I frowned. Demons didn’t usually travel in packs, if they came topside they came by themselves. They weren’t exactly what one would call, ‘social’. I grunted to let the spirit know that she could continue. I could see the struggle in her face as she forced herself to remember. This was bad, especially if she was already losing a memory so recent. She was suddenly showing all the signs of becoming a Lost Soul and against my will my heart ached for her. 5

“The demons.” She muttered to herself and shook her head. After a long drawn out second, in which I had to shuffle away from the flames sniffing curiously at the heels of my boots, she brightened. 6

“Yes. The demons came. They drug everyone away.”7

That at least explained the absence of all the bodies. I wiped sweat from my brow with the hand that wasn’t clutching a weapon. 8

“Why were you left behind.” the spirit’s eyes widened at my question and her mouth firmed a little perfect ‘O’ of surprise. Then her milky eyes filled with tears, tears that glistened in the firelight like diamonds. Her voice was a breath on the smoke filled air, echoing around me with the weight of her grief and terror. 9

“They took them. The demons took my babies and left me here to die.”10

I glanced again at the body, shifting my weight to my opposite leg as I ran my gaze over what used to be her. Finally I found it, the gaping bloody hole in the side of her abdomen where a demon had reached in and taken her babies. 11

Yes…she was indeed turning into one of the lost. Poor thing. 12

“Why were your children taken? Which way did they go, did you see?” 13

You mean while they were gutting her Hirase? Nice way to pour salt into an open wound.14

I winced at my own stupidity.15

Luckily though, the spirit wasn’t listening to me. Her milky white eyes had faded to a silverfish, metallic gray now that she had determined the course of her afterlife. Eye color was important for identifying souls. White for the newly deceased, gray fro the lost, red for the clueless, blue for the playful, and black for the wicked. Her form began to shimmer and I knew then that I had gotten all I could from her. I turned away and hurried towards the double doors, which were still whole as the fire seemed to have originated from the alter. From behind me I aught the eerie, broken sound of weeping. 16

“My babies. My little baby bastards. Bring them back. Give them back.” I didn’t bother turning back around and her voice was soon lost under the roar of flames and the scream of sirens as I stepped from the church and into the cool night air. 17