Playing with Fire: Black Kat IV

PROLOGUE

March 14, 2000

Tucson, Arizona

F

ire was like a woman.Unpredictable, consuming, mesmerizing...

Shane Sumner stared into the flames that engulfed an old furniture warehouse on South Dodge Boulevard as Company Seven rolled up to it.

He shifted in his seat,yearning for the relief only fire seemed to bring him.

Yeah, like a woman...

Fire Chief Walter Mullins started yelling orders, pulling him from his reverie. “Well, Mr. Firefighter of the Year, let’s not be sittin’ on our arses admirin’ the scenery. Shit or get off the pot!”

“Yes, sir!” Shane snapped out of it and climbed from the fire truck.

“Burke, Lockhart, Williams, and Jones,” the chief barked. “Take the front. Casey and Murdock, east entrance. Sumner and Parker, check out the west side. Companies Fourteen and Twenty-Two are on their way. Sixteen is on the other side of the building. You know the drill. Get in, get out. Stick together!”

Bob Parker, Shane’s burly partner, joined him. “I swear ol’ Leatherneck Mullins thinks he’s still in the Marines.”

“Must’ve been a drill sergeant at some point.”

The new fire chief was a tough old windbag, dead set on whipping their company into shape. He had his work cut out for him.

On top of personnel issues, there'd been a string of strange fires in the area, burning hotter than anything Shane had seen before.Almost all of them were in older buildings that had been closed for years.

Bob motioned toward the warehouse. “How many is that this week?”

Shane held up four gloved fingers. “What do ya think—homeless, drug smugglers, or bored teenagers?”

His partner shrugged in his heavy, bright yellow turnout coat. “Take your pick, Scorch.”

Shane smirked. They had given him the nickname and decorated him for heroism after a few harrowing incidents that should have left him dead, but he was neither brave nor heroic.

He was something different.

Really different,

Shane thought as he and his partner masked up and checked each other’s safety equipment one last time.

Something niggled at the back of his mind. A presence, coming from the abandoned building.

He turned, trying to get a lock on it, when the fire chief hollered, “I said move it, ladies!”

Bob clapped a meaty hand on Shane’s shoulder, making him jump.

“Ready?” Bob asked, his voice muffled by his breathing apparatus.

Shane adjusted his helmet. “Let’s go.”

They plunged into the old warehouse and began searching the offices along the corridor.

Bob reached the end of the hallway first.

“Wait!” Shane stopped and tilted his head, listening.

Experience had taught him that fire was a living, breathing thing. Sometimes it spoke to him and whispered things no one else understood.

He closed his eyes and focused, studying the sounds that came to him.

The flames crackled and popped as they writhed over obstacles, surging and swelling away from him, as if in retreat.

“It’s shifting to the back walls,” Shane yelled through his gear.

Bob lifted his head. “How do you know that?”

“Call it a gut feeling.”

It was a helluva lot more than that, but he’d be damned if he would admit it to anyone.

“All right, Scorch, stay close.”

They searched the burning building room by room, the heat growing more intense as they probed deeper.

In a back room, they discovered a man and a woman passed out on the floor, needles still jammed in their arms.

“Damn,” Shane said through his breathing apparatus. “Are they even alive?”

Bob bent down and checked the man’s pulse. “Barely.”

He picked the man up and slung him over his shoulder. Shane followed behind with the woman.

Slowly, torturously, they retraced their paths through the flames to the waiting ambulances.

“Two more,” Shane called out as they approached, carefully placing the woman on one of the waiting stretchers.

The medical crew set to work on the victims.

Shane and Bob headed back inside to look for more.

They had almost made their way back to where they’d found the first two when Shane felt the powerful pull of a presence. A female one.

What the hell?

“Someone’s still back there,” Shane told his partner.

Bob nodded and readjusted his breathing gear. The smoke had grown thicker, and it was a struggle for him to breathe, even with it on.

But not for Shane. He longed to tear the gear off and inhale chestfuls of smoke, but that would give him away for sure. Instead, he put up with the annoying mask and continued on.

They had nearly made it to the back of the building when Bob was overcome and collapsed.

Shane caught him and heaved him up over his shoulder, then made his way down the blazing hallway.

He dragged him out of the building and back to the medical crew, setting his partner on the gurney. He hiked a thumb toward the flames. “There’s another one in there.”

“You’re going back?” a paramedic asked.

Shane gazed up at the warehouse. It was nearly engulfed.

Adrenaline surged through him anew, the fire calling to him, stirring his blood, drawing him in.

“Shhhhhhaaaaaane….”

He rushed back in, trying not to look too eager or give away his abilities.

Flames licked the walls, the rush of heat warm and welcoming.

A memory stirred, an awful one, threatening to erupt and engulf him in the past. Faces in the fire, screaming, crying, begging to be saved.

The images propelled him into the blaze, searching, scanning for signs of life.

He stopped short at the sight of two fiery forms.

Two very naked,

female

fiery forms.

One reached out to the other, who crumbled into a pile of ashes.

The first one turned to him, as if questioning his presence.

He blinked back at it in disbelief.

Was this the arsonist?

Or just some deranged hallucination?

The creature bent down and scooped the ashes off the charred floor with flaming hands.

“What is it?” Shane wondered aloud.

What had disintegrated, and why was the other one picking it up?

It continued, as if not hearing him.

He took off his gear and his helmet, then stepped closer, curiosity getting the better of him as the room blazed around them.

Voices in the distance grew closer.

“Who are you?” he yelled above the din.

The figure stopped and gazed up at him.

“Who are

you

?” it shot back.

The voice was definitely female.

She pulled herself to her full height and rose into the air, stretching her arms out wide. She was fearsome and beautiful as she hovered high above him. A pillar of curves and flames.

He stared up at her in awe, his blood pulsating through his body.

“Who are you?” she asked again.

He placed his hand on his chest and stepped closer, somehow finding his voice. “I’m Shane.”

She hung in midair and studied him for a moment.

He looks like Elvis,

he heard her think.

Shane blinked at her, surprised that the curvaceous, fiery female had opinions. About him.

“Help me,” she pleaded. “Help her.”

His gaze dropped to the pile of ashes on the floor. “How?”

The beams overhead creaked and cracked, drawing his attention.

The voices behind him grew louder.

“Shane!” someone screamed. “Get outta there! It's gonna collapse!”

Powerful arms pulled him backwards.

He struggled against them as they dragged him from the building.

A few seconds later, it folded in on itself in a brilliant burst of flames.

“Someone’s still in there!” Shane yelled and broke free, turning to head back inside.

“Not after that.” Chief Mullins grabbed his shoulder. “No one could have survived that.”

I could have,

he thought to himself.

And so could she. Whoever she was. Whatever she was.

But who was the other one? What had happened to her? Or it?

Why would a creature like that need help in the first place? Was this the cause of the recent arsons? Some kind of female fire creatures?

Questions danced circles in Shane’s mind as he watched the remains of the building smolder for what seemed like hours.