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smeared with Vicks VapoRub to cover up the stench—had transported the bodies to an empty parking lot beside the abandoned tan brick community hospital a few blocks away from the hotel. Someone had found a few dozen shipping pallets and they had alternately stacked wood and bodies in a rough two-story pyramid on the gravelly asphalt. It wasn’t nearly enough fuel if they were going to rely on regular fire, but it was better than nothing.
    The sweaty trio was arguing about what spell they should use to ignite the grisly pyre. I should have probably said hi and introduced myself like a civilized person and asked if they wanted my help. But my eye fell upon the bloated face of a woman who reminded me of my aunt Vicky. Reminded me of how horrible she looked when I found her four days after her suicide. My chest ached with old sorrow. I looked away, looked up, and that wasn’t any better because now I was seeing the faces of all those other dead people. Knowing that I’d come so very close to joining them filled me with anger and anxiety, and suddenly I wanted the carnage
gone
, erased. So instead of observing any social niceties whatsoever I simply strode forward and stripped off my glove.
    “Here, let me give it a try.” I let my fire flare high.
    The Talents got the hell out of my way. I took a deep breath, feeling the pressure build in my hand, and let loose on the corpse pile with a firehose jet of burning purple ectoplasm. The flaming goo melted flesh, wood, and bone like wax a moment before the substances ignited and flash-burned down to noxious black ash. It was fairly disgusting, but I held my breath and kept the spray steady. I could tell I didn’t have a lot of firepower left, probably not enough togive a Virtus even a half-assed blistering, so I might as well put the remainder to good use.
    In a few minutes it was over, nothing but a few charred bones and stray blackened nails from the pallets still burning in a tarry pool of melted asphalt. Ash swirled in the overheated air; I hoped I hadn’t inadvertently seeded us all with some kind of diabolic black lung. The Talents coughing into their Vicksy bandannas looked variously relieved, horrified, and impressed.
    I stared up at the rising smoke and said a quiet good-bye to the townspeople I’d never known and had arrived far too late to save.

chapter
five
Hellement
    P al and I went back upstairs to the penthouse so I could retrieve my backpack and shotgun and his riding tack. Then we searched the floor below, using a key-card spell my familiar knew to pop doors until we found an unclaimed suite with a cushy queen-size bed, a sofa bed, and a big soaking tub in the bathroom. I felt as though my whole body was covered in gritty ash, so I drew myself a bath while Pal charm-cleaned my clothes.
    As I lay back in the warm water, my mind flashed on the Warlock’s expression, and I felt bad all over again. What could I say to him? I knew I had to say
something;
I couldn’t just pretend we hadn’t hurt each other the way we had. And I had to tell Cooper what had happened, whether the Warlock had told him or not. I owed my boyfriend the truth … but first I had to figure out what the truth actually was here.
    I trailed my flame hand over the side of the tub so the glove wouldn’t get wet and fill the bathroom with sulfurous steam. As I washed my face with my flesh hand, I considered the situation and my options. The Warlock and I had gone to a seriously dark, nasty place; even though Miko had goaded us into it, Icouldn’t say with any certainty that we’d just been puppets acting out her twisted desires. Had that kind of violence been in us all along, just waiting to come out? Was all that horror really
us
?
    And were there any words in the whole world that could make any of it better?
    Before I realized what I was doing, my spiraling thoughts dropped me down into my hellement. This place was the remains of the nightmarish dimension Cooper had been trapped in.