Page 122 of Envious Of Fire
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Long before the town looms in the distance, Kyle swears he can sense Elias. All the other human beings in town barely register, hardly there, total afterthoughts. The only person who clicks wholly and potently into place is the man in a house at the edge of town who holds Kyle’s heart. The idea becomes a reality as Kyle stumbles onto his street. His house sits there just as he left it under the glow of a streetlamp, soft light pulsing in the front window, candlelight. He clambers up the steps of his dark porch, peels open the door and comes inside.
Only to find Cade, Layna, and Jeremy seated around the kitchen table. In its center: a bunch of lit candles, their flames dancing. Also: saucers of spices, of herbs, leaves, rose petals. Bottles and squatty glasses filled with different oils.
“The fuck?” mutters Kyle half to himself.
Cade is the first to her feet. “Kyle!” She comes halfway to him, stops. “What in the hell happened to you?”
“This is Drake with the pink hair,” says Kyle without even looking. Mikey barges in, heads straight to the kitchen, twists on the faucet, and plunges his face under it. “And … that was Mikey, who is very, very thirsty.”
“Hi,” says Drake with a demure wiggle of his fingers.
Cade is at a loss for words, gazing at the man chugging water from the faucet in a golden thong, then at pink-haired Drake andKyle. “You guys look like you climbed out of a hole.”
“We did.” Kyle comes up to Cade. “Are you okay? What’s going on here?” He glances to the side, sensing Elias elsewhere in the house. “Is Elias in the bathroom?”
“Showering,” she confirms, flustered. “He’s a wreck. But that apparently doesn’t compare to whateveryou’vebeen through. Are you okay? You in danger? Hurt? Elias told us everything. Well, I assume it’s everything. About the … the morevampireyvampire you two encountered.”
“Hi, Mr. Kyle,” says Layna quietly, her chair squeezed up next to Jeremy, who just stares at Kyle ghoulishly.
When Cade takes Kyle’s hands, he comes to. “Yes,” he says at last, “yes, I’m fine, we’re fine, everyone’s …” He squints at the table. “Really, though, what’s going on exactly? Is this a … a séance? Did you guys think I was dead?”
“Um, no. This is us pretending to have magic powers,” says Cade, then stops herself, eyes wide, and lowers her voice. “Are we in safe company? Can I talk openly around them?”
“We’re safe,” Kyle assures her, patting her hands. “Drake’s like me. Mikey’s like you guys. Uh, Mikey?” He peers around the archway into the kitchen. “Down the hall, the bedroom, there’s a closet full of stuff. I doubt I’m your size, but maybe my boyfriend has something you can borrow.”
Mikey lifts his face from the sink, out of breath, dripping with water. “You … want me … to go and fish something … out of your boyfriend’s closet …?”
“Yep.”
“I’m fucking starved,” says Mikey, running his wet hands over his reddened face, then heads for the hallway as Cade, Layna, and Jeremy watch with unblinking eyes, paying witness to the stranger in a spiked leather collar and shiny golden thong disappear.
Cade lifts an eyebrow. “Are we … gonna get an explanationfor … whatever the hell that was?”
Drake has closed the front door and is slowly walking around the room, taking in the atmosphere. He pulls off his denim jacket, hugs it to himself, then comes to a stop in front of the painting of the lion, studying it in silence.
Kyle is drawn to the table full of items and peculiar aromas. In front of Cade’s seat, he notices a large book. It is opened to a page that makes entirely no sense at all, as if the words are all hieroglyphics, the illustrations utter nonsense. The book’s hard cover appears to be thick and leathery with metal trimming, almost giving it the appearance of a weathered treasure chest.
“Is this … uh … some kind of spell book?” Kyle guesses.
Cade comes up to his side. “Tell me something. Do you see words? Can you read any of this?”
The question makes Kyle chuckle. “Who the heck could?”
“Really? You don’t seeanywords? None at all?”
Being asked again brings Kyle pause. He peers down at the pages once more, confused. “Is this a puzzle? All I see are a ton of weird-ass symbols and gibberish. This in code or something? Is there a legend?” He looks at Cade, only to find her smirking across the table at Layna. He glances back and forth between them. “What am I not getting?”
“See?” says Cade to her daughter.
Layna cradles her head in her hands. “Ugh,soweird.”
“Elias said the same thing,” Cade explains to a baffled Kyle, coming around to his other side. “But when Layna and I look at these pages?” She touches a word that looks like a bunch of tiny curlicues and zigzags. “That reads ‘cinnamon’ to me in perfect English, written out as plain as day.”
Kyle looks at the page again. “Cinnamon?? The fuck?”
“Exactly. I look at that word, I literally see ‘cinnamon’. Not the chicken-scratch nonsense you and Elias seem to see.”
