Ash: Devil's Crucifix MC (9 page)

“I have to go put out a fire.” I say as I throw the sports bra over my head and slick back the hair into a messy ponytail.

“Good. Because I already put out your fire tonight.” He laughs to himself as he swiftly stands on his feet.

I follow him, taking his hand for support. Our bodies stumble together as we both struggle to catch our balance.

He begins to whisper my name, “Dani, I…”

But the sound of men running towards the garage cuts us off, both of us turning our heads towards the glass doors.

“You have to go.”

“I have to go.”

There isn’t anything left to say as I turn my back on him. He slips out a back door, away from the fire department garage while I head out the front, joining the rest of the group as they head for the waiting vans.

Jamie is there; it’s one of his nights on duty. He stares at me as we jump into the backseat before asking, “What the hell happened to you?”

What in the hell is he doing there? Is he a fucking nut job? What the fuck is he thinking?

I watch as Ash Cooper saunters out the side of the fire house, slipping through a few cut pieces of wiry metal in the chain link fence and over towards the next parking lot. He hesitates for a second as he looks back over at the building that’s now all lit up and screaming with the sound of engines firing up and alarms repeating over and over. The calamity is almost too much; it’s certainly migraine-inducing.

I’ve been following the guy for about a week now, watching his every move, plotting what I’m going to do next against what he seems to do. But there is something different about tonight. He didn’t go to his usual bar or visit that chunky chick with the dark hair he always screws after getting club business over and done with. Instead, he’s been chasing after that blonde firefighter tail. I wonder if he knows it was me who set them up.

I chuckle to myself just thinking about it. The Arsonist and the Matchmaker -- not a bad idea for a terrible sitcom. I’m sure some network executive would be desperate enough to air it. After all, there have been far worse ideas that somehow made it to air...

Still, shouldn’t the man who did all the work get a taste of the prize? Here I am, setting up fires, destroying buildings and homes, all the while the newly crowned hero is sitting back and getting a hardcore blowjob from one of my victims. How fair is that?

Really, it is the cherry on my ice cream sundae when it comes to Ash Cooper and me. We go way back, all the way to a more innocent time when we were still hanging together as part of the Hells Rangers. I’d always wanted to ride with him. He was like this god among men -- everyone worshipped him and waited on him and kissed his ring like he was the Godfather. It’s no wonder such a big army followed him when he broke off to start the Devil’s Crucifix.

Even I went with him, like a goddamn lamb marching to the slaughter. And he promised me plenty -- same as he did pretty much all the poor idiots who went with him. I wouldn’t just be some peon with late night runs backing up some muscular pinhead. I would be in charge. I would be a leader for once in my life. I would get to take a seat at the right hand of our father.

I think you can guess it didn’t happen like that. Instead, the Devils got set up quickly -- so quickly, in fact, that I was “forgotten” about in the mix. Story of my life. So, yeah, surprise, surprise, the little guy with the bulging eyes and pale skin always gets ignored wouldn’t get what he was owed.

I tried taking it. In the Hells Rangers, you took what was yours by force, even if it meant shedding a little club blood. I had earned that right to be up there, goddammit. But instead of being looked up to and cheered on, I was disowned and banished.

That could have been enough. Taking a man’s colors and burning them to bits was sacrilegious in our circles. It was the ultimate diss. Thanks to them, I would never be able to join another club. I would forever be this lone wolf without a home, a rider without a purpose. I had to do something just to keep my name out there, not to mention to make those bastards see that leaving me in the dust was the worst mistake they could ever make.

And that’s when it began -- setting the fires, I mean. It started with an easy target -- an old warehouse where I knew a few of our members collected small stashes from dealers. And then I went to a member’s home. I watched him scream from the inside as he searched for his dog. He spotted me through the bushes when he came out coughing and covered in ash and blood.

A few weeks later, I tried striking again -- a home right near the bridge. But before I could spark up anything, Ash Cooper was there. He was waiting for me, as if he knew exactly where I was going to strike. We both tried to end the feud right then and there, but he won…at least he thought. For the last five years, he has ignored what he couldn’t see. He lived in ignorance, thinking he beat me that day, not paying attention to the signs that I was back and more of a wild fucking pitbull than ever before.

Hell, Ash Cooper, dumbass twat that he is, is ignoring me right fucking now, in this very moment, even as he escapes back to his motorcycle like a teenager who just snuck into his girlfriend’s bedroom. If he just looks slightly to his left, he will see me sitting in my car, staring him down with those very same bug eyes. But I guess we don’t see what we don’t want to see. 

I suppose he’s too busy thinking about that pussy. And, I mean, honestly, I can’t help but be there with him. I’ll give that nice piece of ass one thing: the girl seems to be made of grit. I watched her the night she escaped from my fire. Unlike the others, she didn’t resign herself to her death. She fought to the bitter end. And just when I thought I had trapped her, when her time was up, in popped this white knight dressed in black leather. I didn’t even see him climb the walls because I was too busy staring up at this blonde Barbie pounding on the windows and running from her bedroom to her bathroom and back to her kitchen in an attempt to save her life.

Part of me wanted to see her figure it out herself. I know girls like her and how they lived on their looks and good graces. She is that type who would never give me a glance if we were the only two living beings. However, as I followed Ash around on his quest to conquer her, I realized she was much tougher, much more clever than I could imagine. She wasn’t going to take my fires or Ash’s advances lying down.

I was only a few steps behind when he slipped in the back door of that gym where she was alone. At first, I was afraid he was going to force her into something. But to my surprise, she looked like she wanted it just as much as he did. Watching them from one of the windows, I saw her eyes light up as she went to town on his cock, her red lips going low as her blonde head bobbed up and down.

I couldn’t take much more after that, and I sprang loose. The heat and pressure from my own cock bulged and pressed against my jeans as I slithered away in a rage like no other. I wanted that girl for my own. Ash Cooper didn’t deserve her and she was too stupid or wrapped up in that bad boy attitude to see that. 

As I now circle the gym, walking my hard-on off, I take out my lighter and finger the smooth curve of the red pen in the palm of my itching hand. My mouth goes dry, as it always does, and I can feel my blood pressure rise and my skin begin to prickle. If I am this turned on at the sight of that firefighter stripping down for Cooper, I am now about to burst as my own little fetish crawls against my mind.

Fire. I need a fire to burn this sickening feeling off of me. I lower myself towards the warm ground as I search for a bit of wild grass and weeds along with sticks and twigs to act as kindling. My mind races as I think about how I could kill them both in mere seconds if I really want to. I could do it. All I’d have to do would be to grab my ties in the car while they were fucking, completely unaware I was at the doors, sealing their naked asses in. The fire would spread quickly in a place like that. It would take over the rafters and catch on to all those discarded, sweaty towels. Smoke would shoot upwards and out as it moved from the stack of mats to the ground.

It would be so goddamn easy, and I would instantly rid myself of two massive problems. But as I stand there, flicking the lighter’s trigger over and over again, allowing it to singe my palm’s skin, an idea strikes me. There are so many better ways to make sure Ash Cooper gets what he destroyed, and now that I have observed him enough, I know there is a weakness I can target easily. In seconds, I have made bigger and better plans for those two lovebirds. They aren’t going to get the privilege of dying together. One by one, I will watch them burn in my flames as they screech for mercy.

And this time, the man who gave me my nickname all those years ago, the man who tried to have me killed, won’t be able to ignore me any longer. His last words will be calling out “Spark!” as he is engulfed in flames.

----

“Well, well, well,” Remmy sneers at me as I charge through the door and into the main meeting hall. “Where in the holy fuck have you been this evening?”

“Knock that bullshit off, Remmy,” I snap back. “I was where I was, and it’s none of your fucking business, now, is it?” I was in no mood to play to this guy’s massive ego. There is a job to be done. “Where’s the police scanner?” I demand, calling away from Remmy and around the room. “Someone grab it for me. I got fucking work to do.”

A young kid, maybe sixteen or seventeen, runs out of the room and towards the main office where we keep our supplies. I take a seat at the main table as I wait in deathly silence for him to come back. He sets the radio in front of me, and I turn the dials slowly until I find channel 9, the channel for the fire department.

A man’s nonchalant, almost too-calm voice talks over the static of the station. “We’ve got a three-alarm fire at 404 Bridgeview. Three units responding. There are at least four still inside. EMTs have been requested and are on the way.”

I look down at my hands and stare at them in awe. Why are they shaking? I have heard these calls before. And even when we started realizing these fires might be targeting us, it still didn’t really affect me to hear these radio calls. It was what it was. So why now? Is it because she is there?

No. No. No. It can’t be that. I don’t want it to be that. Dani is just some bitch -- granted, an incredibly hot and sexy bitch with a hellspawn’s attitude and a take-no-prisoners body. But let’s be real: she was nothing more than a good fuck. I didn’t owe her anything else after I saved her the first time. I certainly don’t need to care about her any more than this.

I shake my head and try to focus on something else. I stare down at Remmy’s boots before looking back up at him. “Get me Duane,” I growl. “Tell him to bring his PI stuff. I have an idea of who this motherfucker is and what’s going on.”

Remmy nods his head and silently walks outside to make his phone call. The rest of the men light up cigarettes or just stand there like idiots as they watch me closely for some sign or guidance. Problem for them is, I’ve got none. I don’t have a fucking clue what to tell them, either to reassure them or to get them good and pissed off enough to take this fucker out. I’m out of ideas.

Twenty minutes pass by before we hear the roar of a motorcycle pull up to the front entrance. Duane walks in, a laptop bag swung over his shoulders and a tired, pathetic look in his eyes. As our accountant, he isn’t exactly used to being summoned late at night for absolutely no reason. As his leader, I don’t really give a flying fuck.

He bypasses the rest of the crew and heads straight towards me. He can’t hide his annoyance. Can’t say I blame the guy -- this isn’t usually his bag. “What’s going on, boss?” he asks, probably a little more irritated than he means to. “What’s the big emergency?”

I give him a cold, hard stare, and he backs down somewhat. I jerk my head towards my office and begin walking towards it.

He follows, always just a few paces behind. When we get there, he pulls the door shut behind him. “This is about that Dani girl, isn’t it?” he says, making me wince -- the motherfucker knows his shit, and he can read me like a book. “Honest to God, boss, I’ve looked, but I don’t have anything new on her. Besides, I thought we were done chasing after her.” He looks straight at me, a glint in his eye. “Or was there another reason you needed me?” he asks cautiously.

“It’s not about Dani,” I insist, maybe a little too vocally. My head pounds as I think of her body, her tits, that long blonde hair of hers streaking down her back as she straddles me. Goddammit. “It’s about this burner.”

“Burner?” he asks.

“The motherfucker starting all these fires,” I explain, doing my best to keep my patience. “I think I have an idea of who it might be. Thing is, if it’s who I think it is, we’ve either got a zombie on our hands, or I’m a real fucking idiot.”

He eyes me curiously. “What do you mean, a zombie?” he questions me.

“The guy, Duane,” I say, my voice a little more strained, “he’s supposed to be dead.”

“Dead?” he repeats in surprise. “C’mon, boss. Who are you thinking it is? Old Mac? Jerome? Those guys are dead and buried. We were there -- we saw it.” He sits back in his chair and looks at me as if I’m absolutely batshit nuts. And maybe I am -- the club president who went off the rails and started accusing old foggy ghosts of members who died of drug overdoses and heart attacks.   

But I’m not crazy, and I’m pretty sure I’m not wrong, either. “No,” I say emphatically, “not Old Mac or Jerome or any of those guys. This one we didn’t put in the ground. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t even a member when he was killed.”