Chapter 2: Another Fire
Myra yawned as she watched the suns setting. The town of April was not far off. Kristyn was annoyed with bobbing of her thomas. She was glad that they were almost in town. She looked up at the rising fifth moon. It's newly formed crater facing them. As they got into town Kristyn stopped at the first inn they could find. She got off the loathsome animal and tied it at the thomas stable. Myra looked at the inn sign. "The April Saloon: Bar and Rooms" with a vacancy sign tottering on one hinge.
"This place doesn't look very nice," Myra said aloud to no one in particular. She walked into the saloon inn and Kristyn followed. They saw a few drunkards at one side. One of them had a large bruise on the back of his neck. Kristyn looked around the place as well and spotted the barman. She walked over.
"Can I get a room for two, please?" she said sitting down on the bar stool. Myra looked up and down the bar noticing that a lot of people were eying the two girls. Kristyn carried out business with the men. She usually held the responsibility of their account when they went out on assignments. But they had never been out for longer than a week. This assignment involved the tailing of Hiryuu the Flame constantly.
One of the drunkards got up and several followed. They were smirking at Myra as they approached.
"Kristyn," Myra said a little fearfully. "Kristyn!"
"What!" she said, looking at Myra. She turned and saw the four drunken men.
"Hey, babes!" one of them said, coolly. "Want to share a room."
"We've already got a room," Myra said.
"Then, I'll come to your room."
"Back off," Kristyn said, turning back forward and muttering "perverts".
One of the men swatted at Kristyn and immediately got a face full of her thirty pound steel case. Myra backed up into there bar and there was the sound of a clasp snapping, then a room shaking metallic thud. Myra picked up Millie's gun and pulled it up resting it heavily on her shoulder.
"Millie always said the strap never held," she said cheerily to Kristyn.
The three conscious men looked at the two girls like they were some sort of demon. Myra just smiled blankly at them and they cowered back to their corner of the small saloon.
Kristyn and Myra had some dinner at the bar. After a few minutes a man wearing all black, with long straight black hair that flowed over his shoulders like water, and a pair of very dark sunglasses, walked into the saloon. Everyone got very quiet, except Myra and Kristyn, who suddenly noticed the silence. The drunken men in the corner seemed to cower behind some menus.
The man walked up to the bar and sat on a bar stool next to Myra.
"I need a room," the man said, his voice revealing that he was in his late teens.
"That's not a very polite way to ask," Myra said scoldingly.
"Myra!" Kristyn scorned.
The teen turned to the barman and said politely, "Sir, may I rent a room?"
Myra beamed brightly at the newcomer.
"Hi, I'm Myra Thompson, who might you be?" she said amicably.
"Hello, Myra. My name is … David," he said, stirring suspicion in Kristin, but not even phasing Myra.
"It is very nice to meet you, David," she beamed shaking his hand with a firm grip. Some of the men at the corner table scowled at the man conversing amicably with the girl. David turned and cleaned his glasses, giving the men in the corner a bloodcurdling stare before replacing the glasses. "Why are you wearing sunglasses indoors at this time of night?" Myra asked, kindly.
"I have very sensitive eyes," he said.
"Are you from April?"
"No, I'm just passing through on my way to October." He gave the bartender a wave. "Double with a twist."
"On the house."
"Everyone's looking at you," Myra whispered to David.
"Yeah, I got in a bit of a brawl with some guys in here," he said casually, brushing it off. Myra watched the barman slide the shot down to David. Kristyn looked at him awkwardly, too.
"Are you sure you're old enough to drink," Myra said, blatantly. "You don't look twenty-one to me."
David gave a short laugh.
"I assure you I'm well beyond old enough to drink," he said, beaming pleasurably at her. He finished the drink slowly. "Well, I'll see you girls later." He walked to the staircase at the back of the saloon and walked up to the rooms.
"That's a very small glass!" Myra remarked at the empty shot glass. "At least he wasn't drinking very much."
Kristyn sighed hopelessly at Myra. "It's time we went to bed, too, Myra."
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Kristyn woke up at the sound of something crackling. As she got up she heard someone screaming in pain.
"Myra!" she whispered loudly.
"Not yet, Mommy!"
"Myra! MYRA!"
Myra suddenly shot awake and swung out her gun. "Who's there?"
"Myra, it's me! Listen!"
Myra heard the odd crackling sound then a bloodcurdling scream. Then there was a sound like a giant blow torch turned on and suddenly the wall between them burst into flame. Both girls shot out of bed and got dressed extremely quickly. The fire on the wall suddenly extended across in both directions and the bed-ends lit on fire. Myra grabbed her gun and Kristyn grabbed her case. They opened the door to find the hallway was on fire as well.
"God, NOO!" someone in a nearby room screamed. Myra headed for the window and threw her gun through it. The burning wall suddenly burst into the room along with a large ball of flame. Myra jumped out the window onto the porch roof. Kristyn looked through the hole in the wall and saw a giant dark shape engulfed in the flames of the next room over. It stared at her and she stared back at it stunned where she stood leaning on the window sill.
"Kristyn!" Myra shouted from the ground below. But no answer came.
Kristyn watched as the figures head lunged back and a jet of flame shot towards her. She lunged out the window just in time to escape with a minor burn on her boot. She rolled of the roof of the porch and Myra caught her and ran back away from the scene. Kristyn looked back as the entire building seemed to suddenly explode into flames. They had found Hiryuu the Flame a lot sooner than they thought they would.
The building collapsed as the onlookers watched. Most of them were people who had been lodging in the hotel. Kristyn glanced around and looked at all the people who were standing there. It was no crowd, and she didn't see any of the people they had seen in the bar. Not even David. She wondered what she had seen in the flames. She looked back at the inn but there was no sign of anything or anyone in the pile of flaming rubble. Within five minutes, the flames had gone out. They had burned so hot that there was nothing left to burn.
Myra saw a black lump on the other side of the glowing red rubble.
"Kristyn, look!" she said. "There's someone hurt over, there!" she took off running in a wide arc around the glowing ashes and saw the nice, young man they met earlier.
"Are you okay?" Myra asked. "Are you okay, David?"
David looked up at Myra and collapsed flat on the ground. Myra helped him to his feet. He leaned heavily on her.
"Thank you," he said weakly. He bent over double suddenly and he threw up. Myra helped him steady himself again and he looked back at her. She saw his eyes. He looked away quickly, fearfully. Then he bent over and threw up again. "I think I had too much."
"You shouldn't drink alcohol at that age," Myra said with a "you-know-better-than-that" tone of voice.
"Yeah, at my age, no one should drink," he agreed. "Well, thank you."
"You should go to the hospital," Myra said.
"Oh, no, I'll be fine. That's not the first time this has happened to me and not the worst time either," he said, politely. "I can handle myself, but thank you for your concern."
He still avoided her eyes meeting his. Though, she wasn't backing away or calling him a freak like many others had. Why was this?
"Why are they like that?" Myra asked, delicately. She didn't know why she asked, she just did. He stopped and thought a second and before he could answer she plowed on.
"Funny, that we were in the same inn that Hiryuu the Flame struck at isn't it?" she said quickly.
"Why is that funny?" David said looking back at what used to be an inn.
"Didn't we tell you?" Myra said. "Oh, I guess we didn't. Kristyn and I are looking for Hiryuu the Flame. We work for the Bernardelli Insurance Society and we were going to help in detaining him and keeping him on a 'short leash' so he would stop causing so many fires. You know they say he's killed well over a thousand people since what happened in February. Do you know what happened in February?"
"I used to live there," David said. "That's where I'm originally from."
"Well, we're looking for him so that that kind of thing will never happen again. And also he causes $$50 000 000 a year in damages to property, so that's $$2 000 000 000 since the incident in February. He did $$2 000 000 000 of damage when all but two of the plants burned down. That's why we were sent out to find him." She looked around the area for eavesdroppers. "They raised the bounty on him to $$10 000 000 000 because of that," she whispered.
She helped David back to the street and he took out an extra pair of sunglasses from his pocket and put them on.
Kristyn helped Myra with him as he threw up once more. The three of them walked over to another inn down the street and rented a room for the remainder of the night. Kristyn and Myra took care of a few burns on David's legs and they went back to sleep for the night.
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Next, Chapter 3: The Man in Black