Baptism of Fire (Playing With Hellfire Book 1) Read online

  Baptism of Fire

  Playing With Hellfire Book One

  Jessie Thomas

  Copyright © 2020 by Jessie Thomas

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely coincidental.

  Inquires may be addressed via email to [email protected].

  First Digital Edition.

  Cover Design: Orina Kafe

  Summary

  Welcome to Perdition Falls, New York: where arson is considered a recreational activity, the abnormally hot climate makes everything unbearable, and according to one origin story shrouded in myth and legend, our city is an actual Hellmouth.

  I've learned those infernal tales aren't just a cheap marketing ploy to lure in tourists and paranormal frauds.

  It's Hell. We're literally sitting on top of Hell. Fire, brimstone, actual demons--the works.

  When an incendiary--the name other pyromancers have given to the infestation of Hellfire-wielding demons--kills my closest friend and fellow firefighter, I'm left with a rare power I barely understand. It's the only reason I survived. It also makes me a target, something to be coveted by those who know Perdition Falls' most dangerous, well-kept secrets.

  While a demonic arsonist puts the city's resident pyromancers on edge, I'm reunited with my long-lost childhood friend Javier, who shares the same strange power that runs through my veins. With him, I find my footing in a place I thought I knew and buried memories from our past start to resurface. As our ragtag group comes together, we become the last defense against the incendiaries' corrupt hold on the city...one completely disastrous mission at a time.

  But taking down this homicidal demon with a flair for pyromania might mean trusting one of their own.

  For all of the firefighters who battled the bushfires in Australia.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jessie Thomas

  1

  It was often said that in Perdition Falls, you either put out fires or started them.

  Nobody could really argue with the old adage. Wherever it had come from, whoever had said it first, it was as true now as it was then. We had a thrill-seeking attraction to the flames that once conquered the city centuries ago embedded in our genetic code. At least that’s what some believed. You could believe a lot about this place if you took a deep enough dive into its myths and legends.

  Most of us unfortunate souls ended up like me: slightly jaded, our brief, rebellious teenage flirtation with fire-starting long behind us, dedicated to extinguishing other people’s mistakes and bad decisions.

  Sirens pierced the night, a droning crescendo that echoed in the streets as traffic halted to let our truck through. There weren’t many cars on the road to begin with—it was nearing two in the morning on a Sunday—but tires sloshed through the puddles left by a fading storm to clear out of our way. Storefronts and towering, glossy buildings were awash in flickering red until we raced past. One of the truck’s wheels sunk into a massive pothole as we made our way down a main thoroughfare and everyone in the back let out a collective and long-suffering groan. My forehead collided with the window next to me, the impact so jarring that it felt like my insides had scrambled.

  “Damn,” our driver, Davis, muttered from behind me. I couldn’t see him, but the grimace was palpable in his tone. “Sorry.”

  “Again?” Ramos asked while she shoved an arm into her turnout coat. Her helmet had rolled onto the floor between our feet, her curls swept into a tidy bun. Sweat glistened on her dark skin. “You hit that one two days ago. The same one.”

  “More like every week.” Next to Ramos, Burke laughed, a deep, booming sound that filled up the sweltering interior of the truck. He dabbled at the perspiration collecting on his top lip with the back of his coat sleeve. “Think I chipped a tooth on that one.”

  I groaned. “Learn to swerve next time or I swear my spine’s going to detach itself.” The laughter that trickled in made the warning a friendly one. “Evasive maneuvers, Davis.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” It was the kind of hand-wavy response that accompanied an eye roll and maybe a rude gesture. Again, I couldn’t see it, but we’d all been together long enough to just know. “Look, it ain’t my fault the streets are shit. You try driving this rig around a thousand sinkholes every damn day and see where it gets you.”

  As if on cue, the truck swayed precariously to one side, a spray of new gravel tossed under the wheels.

  Not only were the potholes and sinkholes in this city a universal constant, they had a reputation all their own. On average, they accounted for one to five deaths per year. And that wasn’t an exaggeration—if anything, it probably wasn’t even accurate. If the roads decided not to buckle from the heat, blow a tire, or eat a whole car, then there were always the morons who thought our streets were a bottomless well for viral content.

  For every video shaming our city officials for the shitty infrastructure, a bored teenager or drunk resident had to be fished out of the ground. It was a testament to the marvels of human curiosity that those posts circulated around every corner of the internet actually made people flock to here to see the state of our roads. Like some knockoff Grand Canyon carved out of pavement and concrete. Or, as Davis so eloquently put it, “the Land of a Thousand Potholes.” The majestic wonder of the Falls sat twenty minutes away from the city, but no, these people came to gawk at some gigantic sinkholes.

  Gateways to Hell, the souvenir shops called them in their cheap little pamphlets as if we could make money off them instead of fixing the problem. If you stand close enough, you might be able to catch a whiff of brimstone…

  Moretti nudged me somewhere in the ribs with his elbow. “So much for a quiet night, huh? You okay, Nix? You smacked your head pretty good.” One of his thick, inky eyebrows inched toward his hairline.

  I rubbed at my forehead. It stung, and maybe there would be a bruise later, but I couldn’t help the exhausted smirk.

  “I’ll live,” I said. “It’s never quiet around here, you know that.”

  “Yeah.” Moretti smirked. “When’re we gonna learn?”

  It had rained for most of our shift, but now that the storms had quieted down, a suffocating humidity had been left in their wake. Sweat rolled down my back, pooling beneath the navy blue shirt under my turnout gear, soaking the cotton fabric. A passing streetlight revealed the perspiration that beaded down Moretti’s temples. The truck had turned into a sauna, all of us shoved into close quarters under layers of protective clothing.

  It was always fucking sweltering in this city. The a
pproaching summer just seemed to exacerbate this place’s abnormal natural heat. The job was rewarding more often than not, but the mugginess that was so heavy it crushed your chest on top of the heat from a fire really felt like a punishment. We had to be extra cautious working in these conditions. None of us were strangers to heat exhaustion and dehydration. Here, it happened fast.

  What I wouldn’t give to be back at the house, curled up in front of the television with air conditioning and a crappy late night rom-com. Shift had almost ended without incident, strangely quiet until the call came in. Someone had reported smoke drifting from an abandoned building. Nothing too unusual. We got at least a dozen suspicious calls during any given week, and most of them ended up being left unsolved.

  The people of Perdition Falls considered arson a recreational activity. An Olympic sport. Something to pass the time. Not, you know, a criminal offense that could destroy public property or get someone killed. The amount of unsolved arsons were too numerous to count, fire-related crime and accidents so pervasive that our shifts were draining.

  The city officials—the mayor, even our own fire commissioner—seemed pretty unconcerned about the whole thing. Then again, they weren’t the ones running into burning buildings every week, so it was easy not to give a fuck when your life wasn’t in immediate danger. Their usual tactic to appease the disgruntled firefighters and concerned residents involved a lot of flashy press conferences and hollow words about “discussions” that definitely weren’t happening. More empty promises to “improve job safety” and some hand-wringing and their favorite phrase, “We have to do better.”

  It was an endless, bitter cycle, and we were caught right in the middle.

  Moretti leaned into my shoulder, the attractive curves of his cheekbones and soft, raven-black curls illuminated by the bluish glow from his phone screen.

  “Ally just sent me new pictures.”

  He had a wide, proud grin, the kind that showed off the dimples in either cheek. It was the same adoring smile he’d reserved for the spring afternoon that Ally walked down the aisle to marry him two years prior, and the night that his son had been born three months ago. I’d been there for both occasions, just as the two of us had graduated from high school and the academy standing by each other’s side. Moretti and I had gravitated toward one another at the start of freshman year for whatever reason—most likely Italian food, if I was honest with myself—and bickered like we’d already been old friends.

  “He’s sleeping, but—”

  “Those are the best, though,” I said. “Send them to me.”

  Moretti flicked through his photos, revealing a familiar head of pitch black hair and a cherub face. Baby Aidan Moretti had his mouth open slightly, his small hands curled into fists underneath his chin, nestled in pastel blues and greens. His most prominent features resembled his father, but he definitely had Ally’s adorable round nose. We were currently taking bets on whether he’d have his mom’s green eyes or his dad’s deep brown. I was rooting for Ally’s genes to knock out her husband’s for a change.

  “He sleeps when I’m working, then he’s up all night when I’m home.” Moretti shook his head.

  The pale glow of the screen also seemed to amplify the shadows under his eyes. He’d been napping before dispatch sent us out into the night. Whenever he was home, he gave Ally a break and rarely complained about the lack of sleep. I wondered if he’d managed to replace his blood supply with coffee yet.

  “The joys of parenthood,” I teased. “Clearly, he wants to spend time with you.”

  “I’d like it a bit better if he let me sleep. He sleeps, I sleep. We all win.”

  “You knew what you signed up for,” I teased.

  “Maybe his Aunt Victoria would like to babysit him so Ally and I can catch up for like…a weekend.”

  I scrunched up my nose. “Please, he can call me Nix like the rest of you. Aunt Victoria makes me sound like an old lady who keeps those little strawberry candies and packets of tissues in her purse.”

  “So is that a yes?” Moretti asked. The corner of his lips bore a hint of mischief and his eyes were suddenly wide with fatigued desperation.

  “I can’t say no to that face.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “I meant your son.” I settled back into my seat, hands gripping the helmet on my lap. “My godson, thank you very much.”

  The brakes let out a grating whine when we parked in front of the building in question, the blare of the siren dying out. Engine pulled up behind us, waiting to see if this call would require their help.

  Moretti hooked his arm around my shoulders for a second and planted a kiss near my temple.

  “Knew we picked you for a reason, Vic,” he said. He was only one of about five people on this whole planet I allowed to use that nickname and live after calling me Victoria. “C’mon, let’s get this over with. I’ll buy you breakfast after shift.”

  “What about the rest of us, Moretti?” Burke asked. “You gonna share with the class, or are you playing favorites?”

  Every time the whole crew went out to eat, we somehow managed to accumulate the most ridiculous bill. It didn’t matter that it was usually breakfast food of the cheap diner variety. We could work up one hell of an appetite.

  “You’re really going to make the new dad fork over a hundred and fifty bucks?” Ramos challenged.

  “Let’s go, let’s go,” Patterson, our captain, chided over the thud of doors as he hopped out of the passenger seat. He’d kept his mouth shut through our antics on the ride over, but we all knew that holding his tongue had killed him slowly on the inside. He had a talent for ruining a good time. “Stop getting distracted by food, people. We’re still on the clock.”

  Moretti tucked his phone into his vacated seat and grabbed his helmet as we jumped out. The oppressive air hit me right in the face, seizing my lungs in its grip as I sucked in a breath. The lights from our truck reflected off the slick asphalt, steam rising like a thin veil of fog. We’d parked on a narrow, cracked and—what else—pothole-ridden road where a cluster of abandoned stores and houses had been left to the ravages of neglect.

  Aside from a beat up car parked down the street, we were the only ones around. Red flashed across the remains of broken glass in the windows. Weeds sprung up from the concrete, while the grass had been left to its own devices, an untamed field yellowed and dying from the heat. I was surprised that it had grown at all. Mist still clouded the air, haloing the sparse streetlights and casting an eerie, dim glow.

  My boots disrupted a puddle. “You see any smoke?”

  “D’you know who called this in?” Burke asked.

  The scent of damp earth suffused the night, mingling with faint traces of exhaust and the flare of humidity. I lifted my head toward the sky, but nothing stood out against the purplish-black obscured by the distant haze of city lights and pollution and heat.

  “Anonymous caller,” Captain Patterson said, causing all of our heads to turn in his direction. “Some cell phone.”

  He was wider than he was tall, a stray patch of dark gray hair sticking up at the side of his head. He tucked a hand under the open flap of his turnout coat to settle it on his hip and considered the desolate three-story structure in front of us. It might’ve been a house in its former life. Now it was a hollowed out shell, a ghost with weathered paint and front steps on the verge of collapse. Incomprehensible lines of graffiti covered a few boarded up windows.

  It looked like a strong wind could take it out.

  “I got nothing.” I squinted, studying the upstairs windows, rocking back on my heels. A couple strands of dark hair escaped my tight bun and swept into my line of vision. I pushed them aside and planted on my helmet.

  Captain Patterson and Burke set off for the side of the building. Their boots crunched across the dry grass as they trampled through the unkempt growth. The reflective tapes on their gear glinted when they inched out of light’s reach.

  Next to me, Moretti huffed a s
igh. “It’s hot as shit out here and we’re sweating our asses off over a prank call.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” Davis said. He wiped a sleeve over his pale, bald forehead and replaced his helmet.

  “Nah,” Ramos stepped forward, her eyes narrowed, her head tilted upward. “I think I see some smoke.”

  “Where?” I peered up at the structure again to find Ramos’ sightline. Sure enough, there was a column of light gray smoke coiling toward the sky from somewhere in the back of the building. “Tell me I’m not seeing things. That wasn’t there a minute ago, right? We all saw that?”

  A murmur of agreement rippled through our group. Captain Patterson and Burke returned at a jog, exhaling loudly against the stifling air.

  “You see it, Captain?” Ramos asked.

  Patterson nodded. “Moretti, Phoenix, and Ramos, you’re inside with me. Gotta make sure this place is clear while we get eyes on where the smoke’s coming from. Let’s move.”

  Moretti and I locked eyes once Patterson turned his back, neither one of us daring to waste our breath on the string of complaints that would probably spill out over breakfast later when it was safe. A lot could be said in a well-placed scowl if you’d become used to the intent behind it after years of friendship and shared suffering.

  We got to work, all traces of the lighthearted atmosphere evaporating once we shouldered our SCBAs and put on our masks. Just the preparation for entering the building had me drenched in sweat again. I hoped we could knock this one down quickly. I already needed a shower and change of clothes.