Born to Bite (31 page)

“Blood?” Bricker asked blankly, running a hand through his disheveled hair.

“In case one of us twists or breaks an ankle jumping off the porch,” Armand explained patiently as he raised the window and set to work on the screen. “Houses don’t burn this quickly. The fire must have been set. If the culprit is still out there I don’t want anyone injured and unable to defend themselves for any longer than necessary.”

“Right.” Bricker turned and hurried into the walk-in closet.

Eshe shifted her bare feet on the hardwood floor. “The floor is hot.”

Armand nodded as he got the screen free and pitched it away from the house. He peered out, but then paused and cursed.

“What is it?” Eshe asked, squeezing up next to him to peer out. She saw at once what the problem was.

“The back porch is ablaze,” he growled. “We can’t go this way.”

Eshe glanced over the burning porch roof and sighed, knowing he was right. It could collapse beneath them and leave them in an inferno of flames.

“The front porch probably will be too,” Anders muttered as Armand turned away from the window. “The window in my room looks out on the side yard, though. It might be our best bet.”

Armand nodded and ushered Eshe ahead of him toward the door to the hall.

“Where are we going?” Bricker asked. Arms cuddling several bags of blood to his chest as he came out of the closet, he hurried to meet them at the door.

“The porch is on fire. We’re going to try Anders’s room,” Eshe explained, taking a couple of bags from him so he wouldn’t drop them.

Nodding, Bricker slid out of the room and led the way up the hall to Anders’s door. The smoke in the hall was thick now, smothering, and they were all coughing by the time they reached it. The heat was beginning to be unbearable as well.

“This’ll do,” Armand decided after tugging the blackout curtain open and peering outside. He yanked the curtains right off their rod and tossed them across the room, and then shoved the window up, and pretty much just punched the screen out this time, sending it flying outward. The moment that was done, he glanced her way and said, “Eshe, come here.”

She moved forward at once, still holding her jeans and the blood, but he took them from her and urged her to the window.

“Jump away from the house if you can, and roll when you land. The flames are licking the outside of the first floor and your shirt might catch fire.”

Eshe nodded and started to climb onto the windowsill, but she’d barely gotten one leg over it when he caught her arm, saying, “Maybe Anders, Bricker, or I should go first.”

Recalling that he’d wanted the blood in case the culprit was out there, she knew exactly why he suddenly wanted one of them to go first. Clucking with exasperation, Eshe reminded him, “I’m an enforcer. I’ll be fine.”

She then tugged her arm free, lifted her second leg over the windowsill, and pushed out with her hands, shoving herself away from the house as much as she could. She landed with a grunt, but without twisting or breaking an ankle, and then dropped and rolled just to be sure she hadn’t caught fire. She heard a thud to her right on her third roll and knew it was one of the men following her. Stopping her roll, she got quickly to her feet and then jumped back out of the way as Bricker rolled toward her. Eshe then glanced up to the window in time to see Anders pushing himself out of the window.

Her gaze slid to Armand, a frown claiming her lips when she saw him framed in the window, the blood bags all now gathered to his chest.

“Bricker, keep an eye out for our firebug,” she ordered, then stepped closer to the house and held out her hands. “Throw them to me and get out of there.”

Armand tossed the first bag at once, the others quickly followed, and Eshe ended up letting some drop to the ground after catching them so that she could catch the next. She was relieved when he finished tossing the last one, until he suddenly disappeared from the window altogether.

“Armand?” she yelled uncertainly.

“Where the hell did he go?” Anders said, moving to her side. “The fire was licking through the floor when I jumped. He needs to get out of there.”

Eshe just shook her head and watched helplessly. She had no idea where the big idiot had gone, but if he didn’t return and climb out within the next moment, she was going in after him, she thought grimly, and then sighed with relief when he appeared again and finally climbed onto the windowsill and pushed himself off.

“There’s no sign of our firebug,” Bricker said quietly, moving to collect the bags she’d let drop.

Eshe merely nodded. She hadn’t expected the coward to stick around. For all they knew, he’d taken control of someone and had them start the fire while he watched from a safe distance, she thought with disgust as she moved to help Armand to his feet and check to be sure he was okay.

He stood up easily, uninjured by the jump, and smiled at her crookedly before turning to look at his house.

Eshe sighed and turned to peer at it too, knowing it must be hard for him to watch all his personal possession going up in flames. She was already missing the few she had here; her pants, for instance. But Armand was losing much more, including those portraits and photo albums in his desk.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, slipping her hands into his.

“It’s just a house. We can build another,” he murmured, but he sounded weary.

She squeezed his hand and then said, “We should really get out of the sun. You have your choice of the SUV or the woods.”

“The SUV,” Armand murmured, and then turned away from the house to walk with her toward the vehicle.

“Problem,” Anders announced, following. “It’s locked and the keys are—”

“In my hand,” Armand said, raising his hand and opening his fingers so that the set of keys dangled between his thumb and forefinger. “I saw them on the dresser and grabbed them before I climbed out.”

That explained his brief disappearance, Eshe realized, and while it had given her a scary moment, she was glad he’d thought of snatching up those keys. She suspected it wouldn’t have been comfortable sitting in the woods without pants on.

Armand handed Anders the keys and he immediately hit the unlock button. They piled into the SUV, Eshe and Armand in the back, Anders and Bricker in the front.

“It’s a good thing you woke up, Bricker,” Eshe murmured as they watched the fire devour the house.

“I didn’t,” he admitted grimly, and when she glanced at him with surprise, he explained. “I was up calling hotels until about an hour ago. By the way, they’re at the Sofitel,” he said, and then continued, “It was of course the last hotel I called. I went to bed after I found that out, but couldn’t sleep. I was just dosing off when I smelled smoke.”

Eshe smiled wryly and then glanced at Armand and murmured, “See what I mean about the fishbowl?” When he peered back blankly, she pointed out, “I was upset that he forgot to get the name of the hotel when I found out, but in the end it saved our lives.”

Armand nodded slowly, his gaze sliding back to the fire.

“What do we do now?” Bricker asked.

Armand opened his mouth to answer and then paused and glanced out the window as the sound of a fire engine suddenly whooped in the distance. They couldn’t see it through the trees, but he sighed and turned back. “I guess I should wait here for them,” he said reluctantly. “But you three can—”

“I’m not leaving you alone here,” Eshe interrupted firmly. “The firebug could still be around.”

“We’ll all stay,” Anders decided.

Satisfied with that, Eshe sat back to wait for the firemen to arrive.

Seventeen

Eshe raised an eyebrow in question when Armand
left the firemen gathered in front of his still-smoldering house and headed over to rejoin them by the SUV. It was after four. They’d been sitting in the SUV for most of the afternoon, unable to leave with the fire trucks blocking their vehicle.

“They say it was arson,” Armand said dryly as he paused at her side.

“Big surprise,” Bricker muttered with disgust.

Armand nodded. “There’s nothing more we can do around here, though, and they said we could go.”

“Go where?” Anders asked wryly. “Not that rundown motel by the diner? None of us has money.”

“I have other farms,” Armand said, ushering Eshe toward his pickup. “Follow me in the SUV.”

“Do you have keys to the pickup?” Eshe asked with concern as he opened the passenger door for her. It wasn’t locked, but then she’d noticed Armand didn’t seem to bother much about locks out here. She watched as he paused and felt in his back pocket, and smiled wryly when he pulled out his keys.

“I forgot to take them out last night before you yanked my clothes off and had your way with me,” he teased lightly.

“Ha ha,” Eshe muttered, climbing up into the pickup. She heard Armand chuckle as he pushed the door closed, and then he hurried around to his side. As he got in, she asked, “Where are we going?”

Armand hesitated. “I considered seeing if we could stay with Agnes and John, their place is bigger, but they’ll be sleeping and wouldn’t hear the doorbell, so we’ll go stay with Cedrick until I figure something else out. I don’t like pulling him into it, but it’s better than involving one of my mortal managers.”

Eshe nodded. She’d liked Cedrick, and he looked like a guy who could handle himself. Besides, at least they’d know he couldn’t be controlled and made to attack one of them.

They were silent on the drive over, both of them tired and no doubt fretting over this latest attack. At least Eshe was. It seemed to her that the culprit was getting desperate and desperate meant more dangerous, but it hadn’t gotten them any closer to figuring out who he was.

Once they got to the farm Cedrick was managing, Armand made her and the boys wait in the vehicles to avoid standing out in the sun while he went and rousted Cedrick from his bed. The door must have been unlocked, because while he knocked, he also then simply opened the door and entered. He was gone a good ten minutes or more, and Eshe supposed he was explaining everything to Cedrick, which only seemed fair. She wouldn’t have had him dragged into the situation blind. It was a hot day, though, and stifling in the pickup. Eshe was relieved when Armand appeared at the front door and waved at them to come in.

“This place reminds me of Armand’s,” Bricker commented as they met at the front of the vehicles to start toward the house.

“It
is
Armand’s,” Anders pointed out. “Cedrick just runs it for him.”

“You know what I mean,” Bricker said with irritation. “It’s an old Victorian like his and got the trees around it and everything. It’s got heart.”

Eshe knew what he meant. John and Agnes had a lovely home, but she preferred the trees and gabled houses. Armand obviously did too.

Armand was waiting to greet them in the entry with a concerned-looking Cedrick at his side. Everyone murmured greetings, and then Cedrick led them upstairs to the bedrooms. This house was laid out much the same as Armand’s, but as he’d said, smaller. There were only three bedrooms; Cedrick’s room and two guest rooms, which meant Eshe and Armand would share one, and the boys had to bunk together in the other. After showing them the guest bedrooms, Cedrick turned to them and grimaced apologetically as he took in what clothes they’d managed to escape in and the soot covering their faces as well as whatever skin was on display.

“You men can borrow joggers or something from me,” he announced, and then glanced to Eshe and said, “My housekeeper is live-in. She has an apartment over the garage. She probably has something you can wear, Eshe. It’ll do until you can buy something else. But we only have the one bathroom here in the house itself and you’ll have to take turns.” He paused and glanced around the group again and then announced, “Ladies first, of course. You boys can fight over who goes next. Follow me, Eshe, and I’ll show you where things are.”

When Bricker and Anders groaned at being left sooty for a while longer, Eshe found her first smile since waking up to a house on fire and flashed it at the two of them as she followed Cedrick past them. Sometimes it paid to be the only girl.

“The towels and washcloths are in the cupboard under the sink,” Cedrick said pausing to the side of the door to the bathroom so that she could slip past him. “There’s soap and shampoo on the tub, you’re welcome to it.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, entering the room decorated in pale blue.

“I’ll go see if my housekeeper has anything she can let you wear. I’ll set it on the floor outside the door here for you to find,” he finished, and then pulled the door closed before she could thank him again.

Sighing, Eshe turned to peer at the room, pausing when she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her hair was standing on end as if she’d been electrified; there were dark streaks on her face, throat, and legs from the fire; and the white shirt she wore was done up crookedly, one button off, making it look not only ridiculous but even more risqué than it would have been if done up properly. Basically, she was a mess.

Chuckling softly, she turned from the mirror and moved to the tub to open the shower curtain and reach the taps. Within seconds she had a nice steady stream of water coming from the showerhead. Eshe was just undoing Armand’s shirt when someone knocked at the door.

Eyebrows rising, she moved to open it and found Armand on the other side, a bundle of clothes in hand with a pair of sandals on top.

“I brought these up for you,” he explained, holding them out. “The housekeeper’s about your size, believe it or not, so they should fit.”

Eshe smiled wryly at his words as she took the bundle of clothes. She was tall for a woman, and lean. It was rare to find someone her size.

“Thank you,” she murmured, turning to cross to the counter and set them down. She heard the door close as she did, and assumed Armand had left, so took a moment to examine the booty he’d brought her. A pair of ratty old jeans, faded and with holes in them, and a T-shirt with the dubious logo “Save a tractor, ride a farmer” on it.

“Cute,” she said dryly.