Hunter shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’d feel it.”

“What? How do you ”

“Because he’s dead.” Hunter pointed at the fireman on the stretcher. His voice was strong, but his breath shook. “And I feel that.”

Gabriel stared back at him. His breath was shaking, too.

“All right. Give me the stupid rock.”

Getting the gear wasn’t hard. Gabriel slipped through the darkness and grabbed the coat and helmet, pulling into the shadows under the back porch to slide his arms into the sleeves.

He’d left the oxygen tanks it was going to be hard enough to move in this coat. It had to weigh twenty-five pounds. The helmet felt damp with sweat. Gabriel tried not to think about the fact that the last guy to wear this stuff had just died.

Hunter’s rock was tied to his wrist.

If you get hurt or need help, I’ll know.

Cheerful.

The basement was a walkout, onto a concrete patio. The sliding glass door had been smashed out, but most of the firefighters had retreated to the trucks at the front of the house. He should be able to walk in without anyone noticing, especially with those smoke detectors still screeching a warning to anyone smart enough to listen.

Not him.

Gabriel wasn’t ready for the darkness. He knew the sounds of a fire; he spoke its language. The pop of contained liquids exploding, the roar of flames, the crackle of a fire making progress. But the basement was a well of pure blackness, a claustrophobic blanket of smoke and nighttime. Stairs would probably be along the wall, right? He strode forward.

Only to run into a pole. The metal beam came out of nowhere to crack him in the forehead. It almost pushed the helmet clean off his head.

Now he could see stars.

He wished he had a flashlight. In the house thirty seconds, and he’d practically given himself a concussion.

He moved more slowly now, hands outstretched, waving in front of him, ready for obstacles.

His feet found the next one. He didn’t even know what he fell over, it just cracked into his shins and sent him sprawling. He rolled and whacked his head on something.

The smoke detectors kept screeching, pounding into his head.

The blackness in the basement was absolute.

Now he had no idea which way to go.

He crawled.

It felt like he spent hours looking. He actually found the back door again, glass and splinters rough under his palms. Somewhere near the wall his hands found something he couldn’t identify something small. Something soft and pliable. Fur?

Holy crap. A dead cat.

He gritted his teeth and kept crawling, trying not to think what it’d be like to put his hand down on a dead body.

The thought almost made him turn back, but he didn’t.

Finally his hands found a raised surface, then another.

Up he went.

Fire everywhere. It welcomed him onto the main level with a streak of flame across the ceiling.

You’ve come. Come to play.

No one could be alive in here. He could barely recognize the normal shapes of furniture. Everything was ablaze. Another staircase across the room was so fully consumed that he could no longer see steps. The heat seared his lungs with every breath.

Gabriel tried to rein in the fire, to force it to his will, but it fought him.

The fire was effectively giving him the finger.

The house was still standing. There was still more to burn. If he pushed hard, the fire would push back.

Like in the woods, the fire wouldn’t hurt him, but if the whole place came crashing down well, it would hurt like a bitch. If he stayed alive to hurt at all.

“Easy,” he said. Maybe he could try this another way. He held his hands out, placating, feeding it a little of his own energy. “Look. We can play.”

He felt a pause, like the fire was considering it.

Gabriel fed it a little more, sharing a bit more. “I’ll play, too.”

At first, he thought it was going to backfire. Flames curled closer, spiraling around his feet.

But then he realized the fire along the walls had died down.

The flames had calmed, except those near his feet.

He reached down and scooped up a palm full of fire, feeding it energy until it burned like a torch without a base. The fire liked this, tasting his energy, rolling like a cat in the sunshine.

The thought of the dead cat turned his stomach, and he forced the image out of his mind.

“Someone else is here,” he said. “Show me where.”

You. You play.

Gabriel closed his fist, killing the flame in his palm. “If I play your game, you play mine.”

The fire hesitated, and Gabriel worried he’d lose what little control he’d gained.

But then a streak of flame started off across what must have been carpeting, reminding him of those old Looney Tunes cartoons when he was a kid. The kind where there’d be a stick of dy***ite with a really long wick, so the flame could race along until boom.

He probably shouldn’t think about explosions.

The fire led him toward that destroyed staircase, and he swallowed. If there were people upstairs, he had no idea how he’d get to them.

But the fire veered left, into a room that had been a kitchen.

A little kitchen, too. The walls weren’t as badly burned, but the linoleum was warped and cracked from the heat.

Play.

“I’m not playing,” he snapped, feeding his anger to the fire.

“Where are they?”

Here. Here. Here. Play!

Jesus, he was having an argument with fire. Maybe should have kept the oxygen tanks.