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Most people don&039;t stare at the scars They&039;ll look, of course, then do the eye slide You know, the quick look, then drop the gaze, then just have to have that second look But they make it quick The wounds aren&039;t like freak show bad, but they are interesting Captain Pete McKinnon, firefighter and arson investigator, sat across frolass of iced tea that our secretary, Mary, had brought in for hi at my arms Not the placeat the scars and didn&039;t seeht arm had been sliced open twice by a knife One scar hite and old The second was still pink and new My left arm orse A mound of white scar tissue sat at the bend of hts for the rest of my life or the scars would stiffen and I&039;d lose mobility in the arm, or so my physical therapist had said There was a cross-shaped burn ed claw iven me There were one or two other scars hidden under my blouse, but the arm really is the worst

Bert, -sleeved blouses in the office He said that some clients had expressed reservations about my ahoccupationally acquired wounds I hadn&039;t worn a long-sleeved blouse since he made the request He&039;d turned the air conditioner up a little colder every day It was so cold today I had goose bu sweaters to work I was shopping for midriff tops to show off my back scars

McKinnon had been recoeant Rudolph Storr, cop and friend They&039;d played football in college together, and been friends ever since Dolph didn&039;t use the word "friend" lightly, so I knew they were close

"What happened to your aral vaet pesky" I took a sip of coffee

"Pesky," he said and slass on the desk and slipped off his suit jacket He was nearly as wide through the shoulders as I was tall He was a few inches short of Dolph&039;s six foot eight, but he didn&039;t miss it by much He was only in his forties, but his hair was co at the teuished It made him look tired

He had me beat on scars Burn scars crawled up his arms from his hands to disappear under the short sleeves of his white dress shirt The skin was e shade of tan like the skin of soularly

"That must have hurt," I said

"It did" He sat theresteady look "You saw the inside of a hospital on some of that"

"Yeah" I pushed the sleeve up on razed me His eyes widened just a bit "Now that we&039;ve proven we&039;re big tough he-men, can you just cut to the chase? Why are you here, Captain McKinnon?"

He smiled and draped his jacket over the back of his chair He took the tea off my desk and sipped it "Dolph said you wouldn&039;t like being sized up"

"I don&039;t like passing inspections"

"How do you know you passed?"

It was my turn to smile "Women&039;s intuition Nohat do you want?"

"Do you knohat the ter means?"

"An arsonist," I said

He looked expectantly at me

"A pyrokinetic, someone who can call fire psychically"

He nodded "You ever seen a real pyro?"

"I saw films of Ophelia Ryan," I said

"The old black-and-white ones?" he asked

"Yeah"

"She&039;s dead now, you know"

"No, I didn&039;t know"

"Burned to death in her bed, spontaneous coo up that way, as if when they&039;re old they lose control of it You ever see one of them in person?"

"Nope"

"Where&039;d you see the films?"

"Two semesters of Psychic Studies We had a lot of psychics come in and talk to us, demonstrate their abilities, but pyrokinetics is such a rare ability, I don&039;t think the prof could find one"

He nodded and drained the rest of his tea in one long s "I met Ophelia Ryan once before she died Nice lady" He started to turn the ice-filled glass round and round in his large hands He stared at the glass and not at , in his twenties He&039;d started by setting empty houses on fire, like a lot of pyros with people in theot out Then he did a tenement, a real firetrap He set every exit on fire Killed over sixty people, mostly women and children"

McKinnon stared up at me The look in his eyes was haunted "It&039;s still the largest body count I&039;ve ever seen at a fire He did an office building the same way, but missed a couple of exits Twenty-three dead"

"How&039;d you catch hi to the papers and the television He wanted credit for the deaths He set fire to a couple of cops before we got hi silver suits that they wear to oil rig fires He couldn&039;t get them to burn We took him down to the police station, and that was the mistake He set it on fire"

"Where else could you have taken hied massive shoulders "I don&039;t know, somewhere else I was still in the suit, and I held onto hiether if he didn&039;t stop it He laughed and set hilass very carefully on the edge of the desk

"The flaas fire, but paler Didn&039;t burn hi is rated for sorees, and it started to rees, but somehow I didn&039;t melt into a puddle, just the suit I had to strip it off while he laughed He walked out the door and he didn&039;t think anyone would be stupid enough to grab him"

I didn&039;t say the obvious I let him talk

"I tackled him in the hallway and sla, where my skin touched him, it didn&039;t burn It was like the fire crawled over a space and started on my arms, so my hands are fine"

I nodded "There&039;s a theory that a pyro&039;s aura keeps the When you touched his skin, you were too close to his own aura, his own protection, to burn"

He stared at me "Maybe that is what happened, because I threw hi, &039;I&039;ll burn you I&039;ll burn you alive&039; Then the fire changed color to yellow, noro and went for the fire extinguisher We couldn&039;t put the fire on his body out The extinguishers worked on the walls, everything else, but it wouldn&039;t work on hi out of his body from deep inside We&039;d dampen some of the flames, but there was just more of it until he was made of fire"

McKinnon&039;s eyes were distant and horror-filled as if he was still seeing it "He didn&039;t die, Ms Blake, not like he should have He screa and we couldn&039;t help him Couldn&039;t help hi at nothing

I waited and finally said, gently, "Why are you here, Captain?"

He blinked and sort of shook hi on our hands, Ms Blake Dolph said that if anyone could help us cut the loss of life, it was you"

"Psychic ability isn&039;t technically preternatural It&039;s just talent like throwing a great curve ball"

He shook his head "What I saw die on the floor of the station that day wasn&039;t human It couldn&039;t have been human Dolph says you&039;re the monster expert Help me catch this monster before he kills"

"He or she hasn&039;t killed yet? It&039;s just property dae?" I asked

He nodded "I could loseto you I should have bucked this up the line and gotten permission from the chain of cos I want to keep it that way"

I took in a slow breath and let it out "I&039;ll be happy to help, Captain, but I honestly don&039;t knohat I can do for you"

He pulled out a thick file folder "Here&039;s everything we&039;ve got Look it over and call ht"

I took the folder from him and sat it in the middle of my desk blotter

"My number&039;s in the file Callelse But whatever it is, Ms Blake, it can bathe in fla and shed fire like sprinkling water No accelerant, Ms Blake, but the houses have gone up as if they&039;ve been soaked in soet the wood in the lab, it&039;s clean It&039;s like whatever is doing this can force the fire to do things it shouldn&039;t do"

He glanced at his watch "I&039; you on this officially, but I&039;m afraid they&039;ll wait until people are dead I don&039;t want to wait"

"I&039;ll call you tonight, but it may be late How late is too late to call?"

"Any time, Ms Blake, any time"

I nodded and stood I offered rip was firht A lot of male clients that wanted to know about the scars squeezed my hand like they wanted me to cry "uncle" But McKinnon was secure He had his own scars

I&039;d barely sat back dohen the phone rang "What is it, Mary?"

"It&039;s me," Larry said "Mary didn&039;t think you&039;d h" Larry Kirkland, vaue staking vampires

"Nope What&039;s up?"

"I need a ride hohtest hesitation to his voice

"What&039;s wrong?"

He laughed "I should know better than to be coy with you I&039;m all stitched up The doc says I&039;ll be fine"

"What happened?" I asked

"Come pick un hung up on me

There was only one reason for hi stupid and gotten hurt Two bodies to stake Two bodies that wouldn&039;t have risen for at least another night What could have gone wrong? As the old saying goes, only one way to find out

Mary rescheduled otHi-Power out of the top desk drawer and slipped it on Since I&039;d stopped wearing un in the drawer, but outside the office and always after dark I wore a gun Most of the creatures that had scarred me up were dead The majority I&039;d done personally Silver-plated bullets are a wonderful thing

2

Larry sat very carefully in the passenger seat of my Jeep It&039;s hard to sit in a car when your back has fresh stitches in it I&039;d seen the wound It was one sharp puncture and one long, bloody scrape Tounds, really He was still wearing the blue T-shirt he&039;d started in, but the back of it was bloody and ragged I was i it off of hi that stood in their way

Larry strained against the seat belt, trying to find a comfortable position His short red hair had been freshly cut, tight enough to his head that you almost didn&039;t notice the curls He was five foot four, an inch taller than y this May But with the freckles and that little pain wrinkle between his clear blue eyes, he looked closer to sixteen than twenty-one

I&039;d been so busy watching him squirm that I&039;d missed the turnoff to I-270 We were stuck on Ballas until we got to Olive It was just before lunch, and Olive would be packed with people trying to shove food in their mouths and rush back to work

"Did you take your pain pill?" I asked

He tried to sit very still, one are of the seat "No"

"Why not?"

"Because stuff like that knocks ed sleep isn&039;t the saular sleep," I said