Noir

Chapter Eight – Crossfire (Part 2)

Crossfire – Part 2

A roach scuttled under the baseboard. The vacant was cold, the night air swirling through the broken panes. I gazed down from the apartment onto the street below, watching.

Beneath a lamppost, the Archduke of Arson, the Pharaoh of Fire, Lord Cinderbottom stood blowing smoke into the dark, damp air, chasing pussy. A few alley cats hung around him, drawn to his dark, illicit power. Cheap kitties, in thrall to their Imam of Immolation. I watched.

Something below me juddered. I saw a plume of flame billowing into the street, a scream rippling outwards with the heatwave that seared through the broken windows. Panicked, I made for the door, trying to find a way out. Had I been made?

Through an open window in the stairwell, I watched Lord Cinderbottom help a few tenants to safety, no doubt ones who had coughed up their share in his racket. His big crocodile grin failed to mask the dark heart that burned within. I rushed onwards, desperately seeking sancturary. I found instead a wall of flame, and blindly, ran back up the stairs to the roof.

From the top of the building, I saw the flames leap ever higher, as a silhouette rose amongst the conflagration. Lord Cinderbottom, pouring fuel on the flames from above. As I gagged for air amongst the choking smoke and dust, the Oligarch of Oxidation looked down.
“I see you finally decided to alight upon my turf, Detective” he called, the gas causing gouts of orange to blossom into the sky.
I staggered back, trying to pull the revolver from my coat. I fell, succumbing to the smoke.
“Well, now,” the winged demon was saying “much as I’ve found this enlightening, I have some bad news for you.” He paused, watching me writhe on the rooftop. “You’re fired.”
The Prince of Plasma rose above the inferno, and vanished into the billowing black pillars of smoke.

Through the flames, I saw peggle. The blocks danced with the flames, pulsating as the alarm bells were drowned out by the roar of the Lord’s flare. I wanted to laugh at the sick humour of it all, the laugh of a man who is condemned to death but realises that he will never, after all, be asked to pay back the fifty dollars he owes his friend. Instead I coughed, the ugliness of everything that had poured into my body this past week coming out in black, glistening gouts upon the concrete.

As the wall of heat closed in, I heard a crash coming from behind the wall of orange. A shape moved through the conflagration, parting the flames. And, as my vision faded to red, I saw a hat, and a whip, and a big, buck-toothed smile, and then nothing.