Furious Fire: Grimm's Circle, Book 8 (2 page)

He was dead. Had to be dead. He was dead and in hell, because the woman in front of him was the very devil.

“Oh, so cruel.” She sighed and looked up at the man next to her. “Will, I do not think he likes me. Perhaps you should do the honors.”

“As that is my job, it seems wise.” The man moved forward, the sun reflecting off his silvery-white hair.

Thom has seen wizened men with hair that pure white, but this man hadn’t a line on his face. He looked no older than Thom.

Until you looked into those eyes. Those eyes looked as though they’d seen the birth of time.

“Not quite that old. You shouldn’t waste your energy on such thoughts. You have a choice to make and you need to make it soon, because this isn’t what I came here for.”

Behind him, the woman started to pace. “Will, I should go. Get to the church. He’s there, even now.”

“The…the church,” Thom muttered, his words coming slowly.

“Wait, Sina.” The man—Will?—leaned closer, until his hair fell down like a veil around them. “Decide. Live or die, boy. If you live, it will not be the life you’re used to.”

His thoughts spun to Rebecca—always to Rebecca. She was going to marry that lying son of a bitch. That monster—Sawyer Reilly. The bullet in him burned.

“Focus, boy. Do you want to live? Reilly will be dealt with regardless. You can go to your grave knowing that. Or you can live and take up your sword.”

“Sword?” he whispered, staring into eyes that seemed to glow. “You are mad.”

“Decide.” This time when he spoke, his voice resonated inside Thom’s skull.

Again, he thought of Rebecca. Of course he’d live. He couldn’t stand to leave her.

“Back here again, I see.”

Finn didn’t look up.

He just swirled his hand through the water, his mind still on that day.

He’d done it.

For her.

“I never had a chance, did I?”

Will sank to the grass beside Finn. “I never promised you that you would be able to be with her. I told you to decide. I told you that your life wouldn’t be the same. All I told you was that you could live and take up your sword.”

“And I called you crazy.” Finn sighed and looked up at Will. “I should have just given up, gone on. Then maybe I could have been with her. She died anyway.”

A shadow fell across Will’s face and he looked away. “But she died with you at her side,” he finally said. “Do you think that meant nothing to her?”

It was a cold comfort, Finn supposed. But a comfort nonetheless.

“Are you going to tell me yet?” Finn stared out over the river. “It’s been more than a century and a half. That old man, Clemons, is long gone. He spent a few weeks in our town—nobody ever even knew about his time there, except for a handful of people. Everybody thinks he based those books on others…” Finn slanted a look at Will, brow arched. Caustically, he added, “And I can’t imagine how that happened.”

Will said nothing.

After a moment, Finn shrugged. “We don’t even exist anymore. It’s like our lives never happened, and what bit of me
is
out there? It’s a story, so fictionalized and fragmented even I don’t recognize half the shit I told him.”

“Your name stuck with him—the friendship between the three of you. Perhaps your knack for finding trouble, Finn. It’s how storytellers are—they see a story in everything and run with it. At times, that’s served us well.” Will’s gaze was locked on the far away bank on the opposite side of the river, a rueful smile on his lips. Then he turned his head. “Huckleberry Finn…of all the names given to everybody over the years, that has to be one of the strangest.”

Finn snorted. “I still think
Cinderella
takes the cake.”

Will ignored that. “Do you really think the reason I never told you all of it had anything to do with whether or not people might remember him? You? Do you think I worried you’d go chasing people down, wresting the truth from them or taking some twisted form of vengeance over Rebecca’s death? You’re one of us for a reason, boy. Volatile as you may be, you’ve never been one to make somebody else suffer for the sins of others.”

Finn set his jaw.

Sometimes he wondered.

If he could have made others suffer over Becky’s death, would he have let it go? Or would he have taken the chance?

“You’d have let it go. You have forgiveness in you. You also know that in the end it wasn’t Sawyer who acted against you, who harmed her. You have the experience to look back and see it now.”

Lifting his face to the sky, Finn focused on the fat puffs of clouds drifting across the expanse of blue. The experience? Yeah. He knew that now. Some part of him had even recognized the
wrong
in Sawyer’s eyes that last day. His friend had been nothing like the boy he’d known. It was
that
boy who had helped inspire a man to pen tales that were still read after all this time.

They’d known Sam when they were young men—not children. The acquaintance had been a brief one. It had been something of a punch to the face when Finn had seen the book for the first time. He’d looked, just because of the names…
Tom
…and
Sawyer
. It had ripped a hole in him. Then, as he’d flipped through it, Becky’s name had all but grabbed him by the throat.

Samuel Clemons had been much, much younger when they’d met him, in his mid-twenties if Finn had to hazard a guess. They’d been just a few years younger. Sawyer had been a lawyer, a man looking to make his mark on the still-young territory that was the west. Finn had less ambitious goals. He wanted Becky. He wanted to get married. He wanted a home, something he’d never had.

Something he
still
didn’t have.

“How long?” he asked. It was one he’d asked Will a dozen times over the years. Maybe more. He’d never gotten an answer. He didn’t really expect one now.

Maybe that was why he didn’t quite comprehend the answer when it came.

“It happened not long after he turned twenty-two. You were…”

Finn closed his eyes, because he already knew the answer. Twenty-three…he’d been twenty-three. He’d asked Becky to marry him and she’d said yes. He’d asked her to marry him. She’d said yes and then he’d left. He wouldn’t ask his beautiful Becky to live a pauper’s life. She hadn’t cared.

He had.

So he’d left, to make something of himself. Just a few years, that was all he’d needed.

He’d written her, faithfully.

She’d written back.

Until she hadn’t.

Less than two years later, he’d gone back and his entire world had ended. That was in 1862. The year everything changed.

“I’d left,” he said, his voice wooden. “He was a demon and I left her with a demon inside my best friend’s body.”

Finn’s heart seemed to slow, each beat echoing through his entire system.

Thud…

Thud…

Thud…

The fire inside him blazed, burned harder, teasing him.
Let me out, let me out
.

Slowly, he rose, each movement tightly, carefully restrained.

Then he stood there, each movement careful, controlled.

He turned away and stared up the slight incline. Just beyond that copse of trees were the skeletal remains of what had been a church. Gone now. The dirt road that had led to it was overgrown, but in his mind’s eye, Finn could see it, still see Will as he hefted Sawyer’s dead body in his arms, hauled him across the way.

His corpse had been lying there for days when Finn came back, so sick at heart, so empty.

He’d all but burnt the forest down with his fury that first day.

If Will hadn’t been there, there was no telling what might have happened.

He’d just left Becky’s funeral. Her father had been a shadow of a man. Her mother hadn’t even been able to leave her home and come to the funeral. Most of the town had turned out to pay their respects…and whisper, talk, stare.

They’d thought they were being quiet, but he’d heard.

Becky had lain with Sawyer.

She came to a bad end…

Gave herself to a man outside of marriage, and this is what God had to say for it
.

“Get away from her, Sawyer,” Finn warned, so angry he couldn’t see straight. He was questioning his sanity, his sight, everything.

He
should
be questioning his sanity. Hadn’t he been lying on the riverbank only moments ago? Bleeding to death? He could remember the pain, staggering and all-consuming. But there was no pain now.

He could remember thinking he was dying—maybe he had.

Maybe he was caught in some version of hell. Or maybe he was dreaming.

It was possible he was crazy. When he looked at Sawyer, he didn’t
see
the man he’d known since he was a boy. Well, he did, but it wasn’t just the man. He slid in and out of focus while something larger, ephemeral, swelled and pulsated around Sawyer. It made Finn’s bizarrely sensitive eyes water and it felt like his skull was twisting inside out.

And the place stank—
Sawyer
stank.

Nothing
seemed right. Nothing seemed
normal
.

Becky had looked at him, misery in her eyes, one hand resting on the swell of her belly. “Tommy, please…”

No…no, that couldn’t be right. Couldn’t be real, either.

The sight of it, her body ripe with another man’s babe, the sight of her standing next to another man, ready to marry him, all of it ripped a hole inside him, but he couldn’t think about that. He could only think about the thing at her side—the thing that moved like a man. A
thing
, some part of him realized. A
thing
, not a man. Not his friend.

“Thom,” Sawyer purred. “What a surprise to see you here.”

“Get away from her,” he said again, narrowing his eyes as he sighted down the barrel of the Colt.

Somebody moved behind him. He heard the noise so loud—like the roar of a Colt fired next to his ear. He tensed as a hand came to rest on his shoulder. Sina. “Relax, lad. It is only me. Let us handle this, will you?”

Let them—they were insane.

“Yes, boy.” Sawyer sneered at him. “Let them handle it. You’re just a whelp who’ll get in the way and get yourself killed. Again.”

Get myself killed…
Those words whirled in his head.
This really is happening
. His gaze landed on Becky as a soft gasp fell from her lips. She turned, or at least, she
tried.

But Sawyer caught her arm and she tensed.

Finn couldn’t see it, but somehow he knew.

His nostrils flared and he caught the scent of sweat—softer, more feminine. Becky. Some instinct whispered inside that it was her. And a thudding—rhythmic, hard.

Too fast.

And there was
so much
he heard, smelled.

Everything rushed inside his head.

The hand on his shoulder squeezed. “Easy, lad. There’s too much coming at you. You need to go outside.”

“No.” He all but snarled it at her. He took a step forward, his hand tightening on the weapon he held.

Sawyer started to chuckle. “What do you think you’ll do with that useless toy now?”

It wasn’t until that moment that Finn realized the revolver felt…wrong.

He looked down.

“Boy, you never—”

Too many things happened in that moment that he let himself look at the gun he’d crushed in his bare hand. The strength he hadn’t even known he had. Everything inside him began to burn. No. Snarling, he threw it down and lifted the other. “I still got…”

Something red rolled up his hand.

Heat grabbed him. Exploded up his arm, through his entire body. “I…” The air in front of him wavered, the way it did on a blistering hot day.

And then the fire exploded.

People screamed.

But all he could see was Sawyer.

Fire exploded around him and then there was the familiar, booming sound of a gunshot.

A woman screamed.

It was not Sina, that strange woman, though.

She was cursing, long and loud, and then she was running, tearing forward with a speed that befuddled Finn.

Or it would have, if he hadn’t found himself mesmerized by the dancing flames.

That odd, metallic scent.

Turning his head, he found himself staring through the flames.

Fire. Where had the fire…?

Then he lunged for the pale, still form on the floor.

Chapter Two

Finn didn’t even remember leaving the riverbank.

He stood at the edge of the churchyard.

The church had burned to the ground. Will had kept it from spreading but he hadn’t been able to save the church.

Then he’d blasted his way into Finn’s head and bound his ability for a decade.

The pyrokinesis was apparently too volatile to be left in the hands of somebody spiraling through grief and rage. A newly made angel at that. Although why Finn had come into this life with such a deadly ability, he didn’t know.

He was still trying to understand why he’d come into this life at all.

Brooding, he stared at the rotting remains of the church. A new one had been built. Twice.

It had burnt down twice more.

Once after lightning struck it in 1892 and then again in 1928 after a lantern was knocked over. Apparently they gave up then. “Three times a charm.” Staring at the few timbers that hadn’t yet given into the elements, he looked at Will. “You’re telling me that he had a demon in him all that time. We were best friends. We did everything together—he was a good man. Once. I don’t…”

He stopped and lifted his gaze to the sky, staring at it through the crisscrossing branches of the tree.

“It’s an easy enough answer. You felt it yourself when you saw your Rebecca standing next to him. Jealousy. He wanted what you had. He loved her, just as you did. But she loved you. The demonic can work that. You know it as well as I do.”

Finn closed his eyes against the knowledge that burned in him. “And it had him—had
her
for two years?”

“No.” Will’s voice was a cool slap against the burning fury that started to spiral out of control.

Finn shot to his feet but when he would have started to move, Will caught his arm.

“He knew, almost right away, that he’d made a mistake. He fought it—as hard as he could, for as long as he could. But once you open that door and it comes inside, once you let it gain control…” Will looked away.

“It was too late then.” Bitterness twisted him. Two years. He’d left his woman alone with a monster for two years. No wonder Will hadn’t told him.

“That monster didn’t get the better of him until the final few months—not when it came to her.”

Finn swore. “Stay out of my head.” He yanked on the leather cord around his neck. He’d been wearing it when he woke up after Becky’s funeral and Will had told him just what sort of life he’d fallen into. The pendant was etched with upswept wings and when the Grimm looked, it bore words from a language long dead.

Under Finn’s touch, it pulsed, then warmed. Even that irritated him, this connection to a life he hated. He ripped it off and for one moment, he thought about hurling it back at the other man. But something stopped him. Instead of throwing it, and his life, away, he snarled, “This—wearing it—accepting this life, doesn’t mean I want you prying inside my head. Let me have my thoughts. They are all I have, okay?”

Will inclined his head. “If you wish. But would you really prefer to live the rest of your life believing that your friend spent two years tormenting her? Or would you have the truth of it?”

“Sometimes,” Finn said quietly, “I really hate you.”

“So is that a yes?”

Will didn’t blink as he found himself staring down the barrel of a Colt M1877.

Finn had to admire that. Of course, Will could take that gun, melt it into a noose and strangle Finn with it before the metal even cooled, so that might explain why Will didn’t so much as change his expression.

“I. Hate. You,” Finn bit off, fury beating and chewing at his nerves with jagged, gnawing little teeth that left him wanting to scream.

“You aren’t the first.” Will reached up, closed a hand around the barrel and pushed.

Because he knew he wouldn’t shoot, Finn lowered the gun and then, weary, he shoved it into the holster and turned away.

“I don’t want to know this,” he said. “I have enough nightmares in my head.”

“He never hurt her. Not physically. She went to her grave bearing guilt. That alone is an awful burden, but you and I both know that there are much worse sins in this world.”

Slowly, he turned his head and looked back at Will.

The other man was staring into the sky, his expression serene. “He slept with her once, only once. He didn’t hurt her. He had her convinced that you’d abandoned her and she was upset, lonely.”

“Abandoned…but…”

Finn stopped, shaking his head. He didn’t bother to ask how Will knew. The man seemed to know everything he wanted. Or at least what he needed.

“He took your letters. He took hers.” Will shrugged. “He planned it to the last detail, even knowing just how long to wait to make her start to wonder. He planted the seeds of doubt early on, and even before that, he’d let her know how he felt. He was subtle.”

“
Incubae
don’t know what subtle is,” Finn said, shaking his head.

Will didn’t respond.

Slowly, Finn turned, stared at the other man. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Long, heavy moments of silence passed. It could have been moments—it could have been hours. But each heartbeat drew Finn tighter and tighter. When Will finally turned to look at him, Finn’s nerves were drawn too tight and his skin felt sunburnt from the effort it took to keep himself locked down.

“You were too young,” Will said, his voice low. “You were too young and too new and you didn’t feel it. The fact that you even recognized Sawyer as broken was amazing—of course, you knew him from before and you likely saw the wrongness in him because of that. But he wasn’t the only demon we’d gone there to face. Once you were in stasis, Sina and I went after the other one. She was the one who had the most influence on the girl. Apparently she’d been working with Sawyer. If it hadn’t been for her, the incubae wouldn’t have even found his way into town.”

Her—

Finn roared and spun away, going to his knees and plunging his hands into the earth.

There, he unleashed.

The fire flowed deep, deep, deep—

The scent of scorched earth flood his head and he sucked in air, fought to control it.

Head spinning, he opened his eyes.

Around him, birds sang.

Off in the distance, he could hear the river.

The footsteps were nearly soundless and Finn found himself eyeing the white toes of Will’s boots while he continued to fight for air. “Her…” he panted, memory raging inside him. “It was her mother.”

“Yes.”

Jerking his hands out of the ground, he rose. The air smoked, steamed. The fire had cooled to something almost manageable and he felt empty, almost numb. His legs were stiff and he practically stumbled as he moved a few feet away.

“She was the one who told me I should go, make my mark and better myself if I truly wanted to be worthy of her daughter,” Finn said, looking down at his hands, streaked with dirt but unmarred. He’d damn neared killed himself trying to
make his mark
. Trying to make himself
worthy
.

“She wanted you out of the picture. That town was to be her hunting ground, but you were always picking up the pieces, stopping fights…starting them.” Will paused. “You were always the hero type, Thom.”

Finn growled under his breath.

“It’s the truth and you know it. You’d rescue a cat from a tree, put yourself between a town drunk and his wife even when you were nothing but a scrawny bit of nothing.” Will paused. “I should know. I was watching you even then.”

“Too bad you didn’t show up a little sooner.” Finn’s bitterness was going to choke him. “We could have saved her, and maybe even me.”

It wasn’t his fate to be saved, though. Not if Will had been watching him.

What a bitch to know all of this.

Why had he even asked?

It tormented him. Even now. To think that maybe, just maybe, she could have been saved. That maybe he could have some time with her, a life with her.

That if evil hadn’t been lurking at the shadows of his life or maybe if he’d been more wary, from the beginning, he would have been there when that evil came to call.

And he could have had some sort of life to look back on. Instead of this…nothingness.

“Finn. Isn’t it time to let it go? You’ve come too far to lose yourself to a memory,” Will said, his words little more than a whisper on the air.

“A memory.” He turned away from Will.

That was what Will didn’t understand.

She was more than a memory to him, and always had been.

He all but ached for want of her. He couldn’t make himself
believe
that she was truly gone. Never mind that he’d stood at the side of her grave as she was lowered down in the waiting earth.

Once it was done, the world had gone dark as he slid into a deep, mindless sleep that had lasted almost three weeks.

It wasn’t until later that he realized he shouldn’t have come back into the world, wings or no, the way he had. A newly made Grimm was weak and while a new one might not immediately collapse into sleep, within hours, they usually succumb to that deep, dreamless sleep, one that could last hours, or days…and it took weeks or longer to grow into any measure of strength.

Finn practically set the world around him on fire only moments after his return into this life.

Those early days were surreal to him, never fully connecting in his mind.

Maybe that was why he had a hard time believing she was really
gone
.

So much more than a memory, but that was all she’d ever be.

A memory…who even now haunted his dreams, twining there with all the mistakes, all the times he’d failed.

“Can we go crazy?”

It was hours later, and the question caught Will off-guard.

They sat in what could only be described as a dive, but it was the safest sort of place. People made it a habit to ignore others in a place like this and that made it absolutely perfect.

The bar was also loud and crowded, so loud and so crowded that few people took notice of Finn. Will didn’t entirely escape, but he never did.

He hadn’t yet been able to approach just why he was here. Some of his Grimm required gentler handling than others. Handling Finn was like handling a fragmented robin’s egg.

One that could light up the world around him like an inferno in the blink of an eye.

His gut had been whispering to him about Finn for months. He’d been restless, edgy for years and it was getting worse as he neared one of his black spells, when his temper would flare and the fire would burn and Will might have to make a choice.

He wasn’t ready to do that.

He’d only had to do it three times in all his centuries—two thousand years now. It had been brutal each time and he wasn’t ready to do it again. But that was a duty he could never ready himself for.

Can we go crazy…?

Finn
would
ask it here. Lowering his head, Will closed his eyes. Understanding brushed a deadly kiss against his skin. It was time. Again. He’d suspected, even though he’d hoped otherwise.

He’d been watching, and waiting. Hoping it was done, that the boy would have peace.

But hope was a fragile, and in his case often fruitless, thing to wish for.

Finn didn’t understand the play that was reenacting itself before him lifetime after lifetime, but Will did.

He hadn’t figured it out until after the last time, when it was too late. He’d figured it out, but not in time.

He’d learned though, had finally understood.

Since then, he’d done what he could to learn more, taking all the gifts he generally considered useless and making them
not
useless, as he dug his way through death, time and the mind itself until he pieced it together.

Not all of it.

He couldn’t grab it all. Most of his Grimm, he could see inside them enough to see what needed to be seen.

Finn had a head like a rock, though, and Will’s chances to grab the memories he needed were limited to the times when the young Grimm slid into stasis. Sadly with Finn, that happened often. He was reckless and had no regard for his own life. That led to injuries sometimes.

That wasn’t correct. With Finn, it
often
led to injuries and although it took years, decades in fact, Will had enough pieces to form a picture.

She was looking for him.

It might have been enough to give him hope—almost as if God was giving the boy a gift.

Will knew better than to hope, though. Every time she found Finn, it was too late. She had a knack for ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he always found her too late. Sometimes he found her just at the edge of death and other times, he was forced to watch the killing blow.

Yet some part of him recognized her. Recognized her soul once it hit this world—those decades were the ones when his moods were the most mercurial, and as it drew closer and closer for their ill-fated reunion, the fire that fueled Finn’s rage swelled almost to its breaking point.

But not this time.

Will was going to find her on his own. He even had a sense of where to look. He’d find her, by following the tug he could sense in Finn’s gut and he’d be the one to kill her.

The boy could have a few years of peace and maybe if he did, he could break free from this cursed loop.

Nursing what had to be the worst beer he’d ever tasted, Will flicked Finn a bored look. He’d had lifetimes to perfect that look.

“Of course we can go crazy. You passed that point years ago. Why do you ask?”

Lies, coddling and mollifying the boy would serve him no purpose.

Deal with him as he always had, and then send him out on a job.

That was why he was here, after all.

Finn snorted, an almost amused glint in his eyes. “Well, at least you admit it.” Then he reached for the glass in front of him, tossed back the whiskey, hard and fast. “I…” He stopped, set the glass down with a clink. “I have dreams.”

Dreams
. Only the years behind Will allowed him to hide his reaction. Turning his head, he met Finn’s eyes. “We do still dream, Finn. We haven’t lost that much of our humanity.”