Author's Note: This is an entry for the August "Heat" challenge on the Fete des Mousquetaires forum. As always, just having fun, no infringement intended. Love reviews! And a huge thank you to my super beta, MountainCat, who has great ideas and the patience of a Saint.
Prologue
After removing the cork from the bottle, he splashed some in his palm and tasted it. It wasn't a particularly good brandy he noted, but it really didn't matter. This wasn't about taste. This was about trying to save a man's life.
Withdrawing his main gauche from its sheath on his back, he started liberally dousing the blade with brandy. When he judged the blade had been sufficiently disinfected, he took a swig from the bottle's brown neck, confirming it really was an inferior brandy. However, no matter how poor the quality, the alcohol still burned a fierce path down his throat to his stomach and he found this comforting, so much so that he was tempted to finish the bottle. But he knew the brandy would do more good cleansing the flesh and blood wound than trying to drown his tortured soul. So with a small sigh, he restrained himself and set the bottle aside.
His eyes moved from the glistening blade to the red-orange tongues of flame of the fire in front of him. He felt the heat on his face and for a moment imagined how tortuous the fires of hell would be, if they were real. He supposed if anyone would be witness to the actuality of their existence it would be him some day.
As he carefully placed his main gauche's blade in the heat of the blaze, his mind drifted. Heat. The heat of the fire would turn the metal of the dagger's blade into both an instrument of torture and salvation. Heat that would heal through harming. His eyes locked on the blade in the searing heat of the flames and unbidden, he traveled back to his childhood...