Dancing in the Dark

By Willow Taylor

Just outside the gate, Victor paused to light a clove. Shaper came up out of the town's darkness.

"Well?"

"Something doesn¹t quite fit. But I'm not making any theories yet."

Amy blinked calm pink eyes at him questioningly

"Still set on following me about?"

Nod and a smile.

"I thought maybe a little time alone with Shaper would chase you away." The vampire made a face, and the risen stuck out his tongue at Angel. "Anyhow, I'm going to that site where..." He consulted his paper. "Ivan Doriac is rebuilding. He wasn't in his shop at the time, according to the report, which is why he survived."

"What do you think he'll know?" Shaper asked, falling into step half a pace behind Victor.

"Maybe nothing," the supernatural investigator said, exhaling smoke. "Maybe the one thing I need to know."

The light was just gone when they got to the place where Doriac was rebuilding. He was packing up for the day.

"Good Evening, Mr. Doriac."

"Just Doriac," snapped the man, a middling aged carpenter with calluses on his hands and frazzled amber-colored hair. He turned and looked at Victor. "And just who are you? You aren't from the town."

"No, sir, I am not. The council hired me to investigate the fires that've been going on."

Doriac snorted, then spat in the dirt road. "About Godamn time, too."

"Hmm?" Victor prodded gently.

"What's your name, Kid?"

"I'm called Angel. Angel Shelly. I'm a doctor and a wandering supernatural investigator."

"Hmm. Seems someone was listening to me after all."

"Look, Doriac, it's getting a bit dark out here, what say we move to the inn, and I'll buy you an ale, and you can tell me about what happened."

"Now that's a right welcome idea, Angel-boy."

"Now I have always been careful," Doriac said wiping a bit of foam off his upper lip. They were settled into a table at the Last Candle. Shaper next to Victor and the carpenter across from them. Amy had disappeared somewhere, but Victor had no doubt that she'd be back. He was, in the back of his mind, somewhat surprised at how well he was adjusting to her, but then, he supposed he'd been getting used to her for three months, so it wasn't quite as shocking as it could be. "And have never had a fire in my shop for all the ten years since I got out of my apprenticeship with old master Dowdy."

"Until a month and a half ago."

"Yep." Doriac took another pull on his drink and sighed. "Damnedest thing I've ever seen. The shop was half in blazes before I smelled the smoke." He frowned, ends of his mustache drooping. "There is no way it coulda naturally done that, Mr. Shelly, don't know if you know much about fires, but it just couldn'ta."

"I believe you."

"Now, I'm suspecting you want my honest opinion here, so I'm going to give it to you - I think it was set."

Victor raised his eyebrows, leading the carpenter on.

"Now, I ain't rightly sure how, mind you, I kept my shop locked up tighter than a bell-bug. I kept a lot of valuable stuff in the shop." He sighed and took another pull. "It all went up mind you."

"Damn."

"Yeah. I'm just lucky I got out. My apprentice didn't and we didn't even find his fillings." This time Doriac drained the mug, and Victor pushed his own untouched flagon over to the carpenter. The death of his apprentice had apparently hit him pretty hard, and he didn't want to show it. Only after the second flagon was empty did he start again.

"Anyhow, it just didn't burn right. The flames went against the wind. Believe me, you spend your entire life working with wood, you get to know fire as a sometimes friend and oft-times foe." He picked his teeth with his pinky nail, thinking. "I can't help remembering an argument I had the day before my house went up."

"Do tell."

"Well the local witch'd come by, wanted me to make him a special box in black wood. By the end of the week. I told him, I couldn't, because I had other things to do - and I knew he wouldn't be able to pay me what the work was worth. He got very offended about that, and huffed off, muttering to himself, but I had plenty of work to do, what with the fires around. A lot of people needed my help to try and rebuild."

"Wait - " interrupted Shaper. "I thought you were the only one who was rebuilding."

"Well I am, boy. The house I was helping to rebuild burned down the same time as my shop."

"Oh."

"Anyhow, I finished up, cleaned up, locked up, and went to bed. Next thing I know, I smell smoke and the stair case is blocked, gotta leap to the thatch of the next building to get out."

"Thatch?" Victor murmured.

"Burned right down to carbon and cinders it did. Enough charcoal for the blacksmith's next twenty years."

"So how do you think the fire was started?"

"I don't know," he said, scratching his chin. "It's on the tip of my tongue, yet an' I can't really put the thoughts together. Eh." He drained a third flagon and stood. "I'd best be getting home."

"Would you mind if I spoke to you again tomorrow, Doriac? There's a few questions I'd like to discuss with you."

"Neh, it's no problem, long as you don't distract me from my work."

"I may help. It's been a while since I did anything actively constructive."

Victor sat on the edge of his bed, shuffling through the papers thoughtfully. The window opened and Amy, who had disappeared after they spoke to Cayce, sat on the windowsill. "Hello Amy." She walked over and lay down on the bed, looking up at his face thoughtfully. "Thought you were going to be around more."

The vampire shrugged indicating that she'd been around, just not with him.

"You haven't hurt anyone have you?" Victor asked plainly, looking down at her skeptical face impassive. "I'd hate to have to kill you."

Amy put a hand over her heart as if in pain, face a pantomime of emotional distress. Then that faded and she mimed a rabbit hopping by.

"Ahhh..." He looked back at the papers, leaning over to the notepad beside him and taking a few notes. Amy leaned up against him and blew in his ear softly. He batted at her softly, like a pesky mosquito. Again Amy put on her affronted face and tickled him just above his pant's waistband. Victor tossed the sheaf of paper on the floor and whirled around, pinning the albino woman to the bed.

"You make it very hard to work, Amy."

Amy made it perfectly clear that she thought he should work in the morning. Victor let her win, just because it was a very good argument.

There were screams and shouts, which brought Victor to wakefulness, reaching for his gun before his pants. When he saw the dancing light on the wall of the building next door, he had pants and boots and a mostly buttoned shirt on before Amy lifted her head. It was easy to see what was burning. It was the miller's house. Victor stopped in shock - because the miller's house was stone!

A hand grabbed his shoulder and shoved a bucket into his hands. Victor nodded and joined the fire brigade, eyes narrowed against the flames. A familiar figure burst out of the burning building hauling a man along by his pants and a woman over his shoulders, Shaper leapt into the yard, hair smoking. Victor dropped his bucket to rush forward, the only one not shocked.

"I'm not even going to ask..." Angel shouted over the roar of the flames taking the woman, clad in a mostly not there shift, from Shaper's shoulders.

"Good, 'cause I'm not telling."

The woman's skin was dry and hot and her shift was smoldering more than Shaper's hair. The man was alternating coughing hideously and moaning, putting a hand out towards the house. Victor bet he was the miller.

Angel snagged someone with a bucket, and doused the young woman, cooling her skin and soaking her shift to erotic proportions. Victor didn't give a shit, hauling Shaper's jacket off and throwing it around her.

"Is there anyone else in there?" he demanded.

"Don't think so," Shaper said. "Just the miller and his daughter."

"Then get on that pump." Shaper nodded and leapt up onto the fire truck, shooing the regular pumpers away, and proceeding to pump it as fast as the mechanicals allowed. Still staring at the burning house, Victor wondered how a stone house burned.

When the sun rose the last scorched stone fell from the other. Victor wiped ashes off his face and sighed. It was just like the reports said. He really hadn't needed to see that to verify. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he caught a glimpse of a pale young man with washed out hair, but when he turned, the alleyway was empty. Coughing a bit, Victor started to move towards the alley, when suddenly, a huge black man in equally smoky and thrown on clothes.

"Good Greetings to you."

"Thank you." Victor bobbed his head. "And Good Morning to you Mr..."

"Baker. Thom Baker."

"And you're the village pastry chef?" Angel said with a smile.

Baker spat on the ground good humoredly. "Ayup. Make baguettes light as a feather and tough as steel." They shared a smile. "I'm the blacksmith, and head of the fire brigade, Mr. Shelly."

"Angel."

"Now that's not your real name is it?"

"Nope. Just what people tend to call me."

"It's a silly thing that men like us get names like that. Come over to my forge, and I'll tell you what I know of the fires."

"How did you know...?"

"Everyone in town knows why you're here by now, 'Angel,'" Baker said with a broad grin, displaying a gold tooth on his upper palate. "And we all want ta help you. These fires tain't natural. If there was any doubt before, that fire last night went and proved it."

"No shit," Victor said frankly, turning to look at the smoking hole that was all that was left of the house they'd tried for the last few hours to save. Baker stood next to him, and offered the dark haried drifter a water bottle, and he accepted it gladly, swishing a mouthful around his mouth, and spitting before drinking.

"You know," said Baker, in a conversational tone, "If it weren¹t for one thing, I'd almost suspect Cayce set the fires."

"Why don't you?" asked Angel curious.

"Well, Cayce is pretty good and healing and warding most night creatures away, but as fire work goes, he can't make a fire in dry tinder. Not even by conventional means. Matches wouldn't work, flint'n steel'd break, fires just wouldn't light for him. Used to have to get coals from his neighbors to light his cooking fire, and even then, it'd go out from time to time. He said it had something to do with the breath of the fire not favoring him."

"Used to?"

"Yep. Ever since the fire at the Bettersons, he's been having wee Finn tend to his fires."

"Huh," Victor said, wiping his eyes again.

Coughing, Angel plopped down on his bed. He stunk of house fires again.

After two days of living in that smell, he wondered if he'd ever be clean again. Blood, mud, offal, dirt and sweat, they didn't bother him as much as the smoke from a house fire, that clung to every pore, and stunk of lives ruined, and memories destroyed. He shuddered, coughing slightly once more and lit a clove. Even if he couldn't get if off his skin, he could get it out of his nostrils. Strange how the woodsmoke tore him up inside, while the cool grey blue smoke from his cloves soothed his lungs. A wry smile twisted his mouth. Just one of those things, he guessed. Speaking of things he didn't understand, were was Amy? Women didn't need to be super stealthy vampires to be mysterious and hard to understand. Funny how quickly he'd gotten used to having her around. He sighed and flung himself backwards onto the bed for a moment. Just for a moment, since he was still wearing his boots. The drifter's still gloved fingers automatically extinguished the cigarette in his hand, and his eyes closed of their own accord before he could get up the energy to sit up again.

It was late afternoon when he woke up, still half sprawled off the bed. He probably would have still been sleeping if Shaper hadn't stuck his head in the door.

"Hey Victor, you asleep?"

"I was," the drifter answered, somewhat grumpily.

"Oh good, then you aren't now." Shaper pushed his way into the room and grabbed the lone chair, turning it around and straddling it, setting his arms folded on the top rung, and his chin on his arms. The mask that dangled from his belt rested the tip on the floor in a kind of bizarre mimicry of Shaper's own face. "I figured you might want my view on the fire last night."

"Not really, but go ahead." Victor grumbled getting to his feet and going over to the wash basin. He could get a bit of the grime off, at least.

Shaper stayed silent as Victor stripped to the waist and commenced washing in cold water. Finally he spoke.

"I was inside the house when the fire broke out." He paused as if waiting for a question Victor didn't even look up. Sighing, Shaper went on. "In the room where it started, actually. We were sitting in the living room," again a half second pause, waiting for a question. "This patch of fire started climbing up the wall. At first we thought it was a reflection from the fireplace, but as it started to spread it became pretty damn obvious it wasn't."

"Do you have any idea what it was?" Victor said, turning around and toweling off his face and neck.

Shaper shook his head. "It wasn't natural, I'm afraid that's all I could tell you. Don't have your experience."

"Heh. For once you admit it."

"Shut up."

After pulling a comb through his hair a few times, Victor felt ready to face the town. Not that he was going to actually face the town at large - not yet, he had a bit more research to do. And of course, that appointment with Doriac. Which he'd better get to, unless he wanted to catch the carpenter just as he was packing up again. Doriac saw him coming and climbed down the wooden frame of the house to meet him.

"I thought ye wouldn't be comin', after all your effort last night ta save a doomed house."

"Well, I said I would," Victor said good naturedly, "and you said you'd tell me more about the people of this town, right?"

"As the Goddess breathes." Doriac nodded. "Ye'd best be taking off that long mess of leather. It'll only get in the way up there." Victor obediently removed his jacket, but didn't offer any statements about the holster beneath it. Give the carpenter credit - neither did he. He just told Angel to grab the bucket of nails and follow him up to where he was fixing the frame on the second and a half story.

"Good work here," the dark haired drifter commented, but Doriac pointed him at a pulley. "Now, you said that the house next door was thatch?"

"Yep. Take a look." Doriac pointed. "Did I say to stop hauling those beams up?"

Victor chuckled and resumed hauling hand over hand brow furrowed.

"I know what you're thinking, Angel, boy, and you're right. That thatch shoulda caught."

"Miracle it didn't," the drifter agreed, hauling the load of wall beams over.

"Not miracle. Intent. That fire wasn't natural, and it was only supposed to burn me out. Not the Fishers."

"Do you really believe that?"

"Sure as I'm working."

There was a break in conversation as they put some of the further beams up. The walls would be started tomorrow, if Victor was any judge. He liked the smell of wood, and even the rough beams they were putting up to base off of felt good. A chance glance down saw Cayce and Finn looking up at them, as if in curiosity. But there was too much to do to dwell on that.

"So if you think it was set, who do you think did it?"

"There's many a man in town that doesn¹t like my politics," the carpenter admitted. "And I'm a bit argumentative by nature, but really, I can only think of one man who'd really want me down, and...what in blazes?"

"Blazes is right," said Victor standing up and shielding his eyes as he looked westward at a pillar of smoke. "It looks like the inn is going up." It took half a second to register. "Amy... Shit." Then the smell of smoke was closer, and he looked down.

"Well, lord bend me over and..." Doriac didn't have time to finish the statement, Victor hauled him along the beam they stood on towards the rope, only to have it go up in sudden spurt of flames. Somehow, the lower half of the post structure was burning - and the flames were creeping up towards the drifter and the carpenter.

Victor whipped his head around and backed up a few paces, lifting the carpenter with surprising strength and running along the narrow beam, he flung himself out into space, and into the thatch of the building next door. They hit with a crash and started to slide, Victor rolled over in time to see a limb of fire reach out towards them and touch the thatch where they had landed.