Vampire High Sophomore Year

28



I pushed through the crowd over to the basement doorway.

Smoke was pouring out. Fierce, gray smoke, racing up to join us. And behind it I could see the flicker of orange flames.

Fire extinguishers. We didn’t have them. Hadn’t thought of them. Sprinkler system? That would have been a good idea.

“We’ve got to get everybody out,” I said, to no one and everyone.

I put my arms over my face, went down the stairs, found the door by touch, and slammed it. That might cut off the air supply, I hoped. At least it would buy a little time.

I didn’t ask myself why the door was even open.

“My art,” Turk said, and ducked back through the crowd. “Okay, everybody, we’re getting out,” she said. “Everybody grab one piece and take it with you. Save the art. Save the art.”

Some people picked things up, or yanked them off the walls. Someone even grabbed The Scream from the wigwam. But others just headed for the doors. In a few seconds, everyone was jammed together trying to get out.

“Somebody call the fire department!” I heard a voice say.

“Come on, people, calm down. Line up,” the first cop said. “Weren’t you ever in second grade? Line up.”

But people weren’t really listening. The stairs were filling up as people on the upper floors realized there was something wrong. I heard some people scream.

Justin and Gregor thought to open the windows, and people started to jump through them. Ilie and Constantin picked up Mrs. Warrener’s piano, twisted the legs off, and rescued it. Blasts of cold air came into the room, and somehow that seemed to increase the panic.

“Cody, come on,” Dad called to me. He had his arm around Mom and they were about to go out by one of the front windows.

“Right with you, Dad,” I said. Then I pushed my way to the stairs. I was going to make sure that the top two floors were clear.

But how to get up there? People were choking the steps.

“Mosh pit!” I shouted, and jumped for their shoulders.

People yelled, and some of them cursed me, but enough of them got the idea, and I went up on their hands.

I fell onto the floor of the second story, picked myself up, and heard another thump behind me.

“Keep going, Cody,” Justin said. “I’m right behind you.”

“Check the right,” I said, and went left.

It only took a minute. No one was there except for the last people trying to get down the stairs. The dancing had drawn almost everybody down to the first floor before the fire started.

“All clear on this side,” Justin called to me.

And we went up to the third floor.

Nobody was there.

“We’re done here,” I said. “Let’s get out.”

Then I looked toward the office.

“But first we’ve got to save Gregor’s posters and stuff,” I said. “Come on.”

“We’d better go,” Justin said. “Wouldn’t be so good to get trapped up here.”

“Oh, we’ve got time,” I said. “The fire’s down in the basement, for pete’s sake.”

“Cody, this is an old building,” Justin said. “The wood’s dry as straw. Trust me, I live in an old house.”

“Five minutes,” I said, and tried the door. I guess Ileana had locked it again. “Uh-oh,” I said, and leaned on it with all my weight.

“Oh, geez,” Justin said. “Let a jenti do it.” And broke it down with one kick.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Could we hurry, at least?” he said.

“Okay, three minutes,” I said.

Down came the posters of Languedoc and the Rheinfells. Justin scooped up an armful of sheet music. I grabbed some notebooks. Everything paper we managed to rescue. But that was all we could do.

Somewhere down below, I heard a dull roaring sound. The building groaned, and the lights went out. The fire had reached the generators.

“Is it my imagination, or did things just get a lot worse?” I said.

“Unless we have the same imagination, I think we’re in trouble,” Justin said.

“You know, those windows you and Gregor opened …,” I said.

“Feeding the fire now,” Justin said.

We ran down the stairs to the second floor.

We were already too late. Justin had been right. I had bought us a few minutes, but the fire was finding its way up the chimneys and along the wooden bones of the old factory. The bottom floor wasn’t there anymore. The one we were standing on was starting to go.

We ran back up to the third floor and opened a window. It looked like a long way down.

“We’re going to have to dump the stuff, then drop,” I said.

I took off my jacket and wrapped it around everything we’d rescued. At least that would probably keep it together. Then I tossed it.

It landed too close to the building.

“Pick that up,” I shouted down, and somebody dared to come close enough to get it.

“You first,” I said to Justin.

“No, you first,” Justin said.

“You’re lighter,” I said.

“I’m stronger,” he said.

By now people were pointing up at us. I saw Mrs. Warrener down there. I heard my mother scream.

And then, hanging on the wall right beside me was a huge pair of wings and a set of sharp fangs.

“Grab on, one of you two idiots,” Gregor said.

“Go!” I said, and pushed Justin toward him.

“Get on, Warrener. You can’t argue with him. He’s more stupid than you are,” Gregor rasped.

“Good point,” I agreed.

Justin threw his arms around Gregor’s neck. They flew into an uprush of smoke and fierce hot air erupting through the windows on the second floor, and they made a crash landing a few yards from the building. Justin picked himself up, but Gregor flopped around like he’d hurt a wing.

Mr. and Ms. Shadwell were under me now, leaping up against the wall, and man, could they leap. But they still only got to five feet below me, and anyway, what could they do?

Behind me, the fire found its way up the stairs. It leapt forward like it was glad to see me.

Then someone very small and dark came arrowing to me out of the night.

“Come, my love,” she said.

I could feel her wings working as we dropped toward the ground. I held her tight, and she fought against the hot wind and gravity to set me down gently.

I held on to her until she said, “Cody, let me go. I dropped my shoes.”

I released her, and she changed back into her usual self and, shaking like a willow branch, leaned on me while she put her shoes back on.

My jenti princess.

The Daughters were close by, hanging near the Shadwells, who were still wolves. Pestilence saw me with Ileana, raised one eyebrow, and turned away.

Now Mom was hugging me, and so was Dad, and so was Turk, and we were all crying, and Gregor was standing nearby with his arm at a funny angle.

“Is it broken?” I asked when I could.

“No, just sprained my shoulder, I think,” Gregor said. “This one”—he jerked his chin at Justin—“threw me off balance.”

“Dimitru, you couldn’t fly a paper airplane across the backyard,” Justin said, and smiled.

“He couldn’t fly one across the room,” Turk said. Then she wrapped her arms around Gregor’s neck and kissed him.

“That doesn’t mean I love you,” she said.

“I do not love you, either,” Gregor said, and kissed her back. When they came up for air, he said, “If you ever go away again without telling anyone—”

“Shut up,” Turk said. “I came back. I’ve never come back before.”

And they locked together like a couple of snakes, with Gregor’s bad arm hanging off to one side.

Snakes!

“Oh, damn, Mercy’s flag,” I said.

I pulled away from Mom and Dad and, with them following, I went around to the front of the building.

The flagpole was empty. Maybe somebody had taken the flag down. Maybe the delicate old fabric had caught fire somehow and fallen into the ring of ashes that was growing around the burning arts center.

The fire engines were arriving now. They surrounded the building and started spraying the flames from all sides. The fire acted like it was startled; it seemed to duck its head.

Ms. Vukovitch said, “If this thing was set, I don’t care who did it. I will find them out, hunt them down, and drink them dry. If it was some mistake my boys and I made, I will kill myself.”

The south wall let go, burying my sad little corn patch. It was like the flames had been the only thing holding it up.

I felt a hand in mine, small and cold.

“Cody, I am so sorry for you,” Ileana said. “It was a beautiful idea.”

That was the first time it really hit me that the center was gone. It didn’t matter if the fire had been set or not. The effect was the same. New Sodom—old New Sodom—had won.