Hell Fire by Ann Aguire

Author:Ann Aguire
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Horror & Ghost Stories
Published: 2010-05-29T07:00:00+00:00

I surfaced to an argument. Someone’s arms were around me. I recognized his scent before I opened my eyes.

“We should get her the fuck out of Kilmer,” Jesse was saying. “She’s been out for three hours, and that burn on her palm needs medical attention.”

I was lying on the mattress I’d surrendered to Shannon, and I felt as though I’d been hit by a truck. That was ameliorated slightly by feeling Chance beside me.

“If you touch her, I’ll kill you,” Chance said conversationally. “The doctors won’t know what to do with her. They’ll run tests, stick her with needles, pump her full of drugs, and then say she’s a medical mystery.” He took a breath, as if trying to rein back his protective instincts. “You don’t understand how much she hates hospitals. Just give her time, all right? Corine is strong. If I didn’t think she could do it, I’d have tried to talk her out of it. Trust her to know her own limits.”

Joy came streaming through me like sunlight. Trust her. Stupid as it might seem, that elated me. We were making progress. I wanted to hug him, but at first, my eyelids refused to lift. I could feel my body again, but that wasn’t a good thing. If I ever considered reading a whole house again, I hoped someone would shoot me.

“I’m okay,” I tried to mumble. It came out unintelligible, but the sign of life rendered both men speechless, I assumed with relief.

Eventually I got my eyes open. Everything looked strange and distant, as if I peered through a gauzy veil. My hand throbbed like a son of a bitch.

Chance’s arms tightened around me, and I didn’t try to get away. “Shannon, get the salve I left in the living room.”

Motion flickered at the edges of my vision, but I still couldn’t focus right. She must have fetched it, though, because I felt him applying the ointment to my injured palm as he’d done so many times before. His mother’s remedy soothed the worst of the pain. More than once, I’d considered the cream magickal. Now I suspected it just might be. “What happened?” I asked. That time, the words came out more or less as I intended.

“You were . . . inside a long time. And the pain—” Jesse’s voice actually broke. “Christ Almighty, Corine.”

“So we pulled your hand off the wall,” Shannon continued. “But I wasn’t sure we did it fast enough, ’cause it didn’t seem to do much good. You puked and then passed out.”

“It’s an evil place,” I said, low. “Hungry. But it’s different than what lives in the wood.”

“The site needs to be cleansed,” Jesse agreed. “But that’s not our first priority.”

I acknowledged that with a tired nod. My stomach still felt queer and queasy. I was in no condition to argue with anybody about anything.

Shannon added, “You should have seen Chance. He was freakin’ out.”

Chance gave a wry half smile, but he didn’t deny it. “So we came back here to wait it out.

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