Page 96 of From the Ashes
Light flashed, and the imp rose large and real before me. It's hairless body reared up and its slanted green eyes pinned on a point behind me, as if daring the general to attack.
"Devil!" Gillingham cried in a high-pitched voice. "She's a witch!"
"Get back!" the general ordered. "All of you, stay back!"
My chest hurt. My throat ached. Heat swirled around me, more intense near the pantry door, engulfed in flames. I put my hands out like a blind person and shuffled forward.Trust the imp.
The imp suddenly changed shape. The cat-like creature whirled around and around until it became a blur. Smoke swirled around it, caught in the force like dust in a whirlwind. The imp spun out of the kitchen, scattering the panicked onlookers, drawing the smoke along in its wake.
I breathed in two deep breaths of semi-clear air, before more smoke billowed from the flames. Through the sting of my tears, I could just make out three bodies and a dismembered leg on the floor amid broken pieces of furniture, crockery and splattered food. I recognized Cook, Gus and Lincoln. Only Cook coughed. The other two didn't move.
Oh God, oh God.
"Water!" Seth shouted. "Put out the fire before it spreads."
"Stay there," the general growled, pointing a small handgun at Seth. "No one move."
"Enough, General," Marchbank snapped. "Put the weapon away, and let us save them."
"Get Lincoln out," the general said. "No one else."
"Are you mad?"
"He's my son!"
"No," I rasped. "He's not."
The general pointed the gun at me. "You corrupted him. You changed him. He was loyal and content to do his duty for the ministry until you appeared."
I couldn't protest. A coughing fit assaulted me and snot streamed from my nose and tears from my eyes. My imp was gone and I couldn't attack the general from my weakened position, hunched on all fours.
"Damn you, Witch. You're going to hell where your kind belongs." He pulled the trigger and a shot rang out.
Yet I didn't die. I opened my eyes—I hadn't realized I'd shut them—to see the imp on its hind legs, a bullet in one paw, a pail in the other. It splashed water from the pail over the flames licking the pantry doorframe, as if it did that sort of thing every day and had not just saved my life.
Seth grabbed the gun as the general stared dazedly at the imp.
"Whatisthat thing?" Gillingham murmured from behind Lady Harcourt.
"Move aside," Marchbank ordered, pushing past. He, Buchanan and Harcourt rushed in, pails in hand. They tossed water over the flames. Between them and the fast-moving imp, the fire was soon put out.
The kitchen was a charred, ruined mess. I scrambled through the shards of crockery and splintered furniture to Lincoln's still body. Too still.
I brushed his hair off his face and pressed my ear to his mouth. His shallow breaths wheezed. Despite my parched throat, I began to cry.
"Does he live?" Lady Harcourt knelt at my side, a candlestick in hand. Now that the fire was out, it provided the only light.
I nodded and she let out a low wail. The general murmured something at the ceiling and lowered his head. "My boy."
I was too exhausted to tell him Lincoln did not see himself as the general's son.
"Doyle," I rasped. "Fetch Dr. Fawkner."
The butler nodded then disappeared.
I stroked Lincoln's face. Except for the blue-black lump on his forehead, he was so pale. He looked younger, but that could have been because I'd never seen him so helpless. I pressed my lips to his, half kissing, half breathing in the hope that I had the power to keep him alive.
"Get away from him," Lady Harcourt hissed. "You're smothering him."
