Page 1 of Envious Of Fire
Prologue.
The Purpose of One Life.
—·—
Fire.
How it dances so beautifully without instruction.
Its choreography, an accident of nature, guided by wind, by God, by whatever it delights in consuming.
A guiltless monster, growing without limit, the envy of any creature who has thirsted beyond their means, who has craved a true freedom outside the intolerable restraints of morality.
Feeding on whatever it finds until there is no more, neither willing nor capable of distinguishing good from bad. It just eats.
These were the thoughts of Tristan twenty-seven years ago in a small Texas suburb as he calmly watched his lover’s house burn.
Kyle Amos’s house.
Within, the corpses of Kyle’s mother, father, and dear little brother, none of whom deserved to die. The fire paid no mind. It was only hungry, and Kyle’s life was ever so tasty.
“Is it done?”
The question came from Tristan’s eternal accomplice in all things terrible. She is Wendy. Voice, thin and frosty, tinny notes on a vibraphone. Her shape, enshrouded and shadowy, as it often is, only giving a faint hint of perhaps a prepubescent girl. That was a gift—the true sight of Wendy was horrifying.
To her question, Tristan tilted his head and, edged with exhaustion, said,My dear Wendy, the work is never done.
“Does the Kyle boy await you elsewhere?”
Inconsolably. In a two-star motel. I told him to count sheep. The star rating is rounded up, by the way.
“Star rating? I know not your strange terms.”
This is why I like you, Wendy.
The fire raged greedily on, biting into wood, licking at the trees. Its twenty tongues reached into the sky like the house and three lives weren’t enough; it also desired the stars. Neighbors had already gathered outside. The distant sirens of fire trucks racing there to put an end to the short and glorious life of the fire wailed through the smoky night air.
No one could see them.
That was thanks to Wendy’s unique ability to bend light. Or swallow it. The exact way her talent functioned was, like many things about Wendy, unclear. But it hid the two of them in plain sight, blending them seamlessly into the shadows of trees, mailboxes, vehicles, and all matters of suburban dullness.
You must return soon, Tristan reminded her.The trip back to Las Vegas will be lengthy, and Lord Markadian always notices when his toys have gone missing for too long.
“Especially when that toy is you,” she returned.
Tristan shrugged.He will forget about me in time.
“You underestimate his love for you.”
He will love another in time, too.
“You overestimate the power of time.”
Lord Markadian has enough to worry about, governing the west region, minding rogue immortals and Ferals and witches and other pests of the night, not to mention the pandering directors who fight for his love themselves…He is never in short supply of fodder for his ego. By the way, thank you for your assistance on this night.You facilitate the act of burning away all trace of three unfortunate human corpses with unsettling finesse.Are you by chance a serial killer in someother reality or parallel existence?…Or a pyromaniac, at the very least…?
“Three?” asked Wendy.
Tristan stopped. It was a single-worded question—Three. Yet that single word cut every thread of Tristan’s flippant calmness.
