22: Seamus on Fire

His mouth was dry, as dry as any desert plain he could ev­er imag­ine. Twice, he lolled his tongue across the top palate of his mouth try­ing to form enough spit just so he could swal­low and ease the cracked walls of this throat, but noth­ing came. He had even tried lick­ing his lips to calm the dry­ness there, but his tongue lacked the mois­ture to bring even that slight respite.

His body was on fire, sear­ing away any mois­ture that might form with­in him to bring him any sec­ond of re­lief. He could feel it flow­ing through his veins to burst from his skin. When he could open his eyes, he could see the walls of his of­fice slow­ly wa­ver­ing from the heat that he emit­ted from where Brig­it had dumped him on the couch. She had shown an ounce of mer­cy in cov­er­ing him with a blan­ket be­fore she had aban­doned him to burn in the flames. Some­where over the course of the in­fec­tion, how­ev­er, he had in­ad­ver­tent­ly kicked it to the floor be­side him. It would have helped, he had the thought, to put out the flames that sprang like la­va plumes of an an­gry vol­cano from ev­ery pore of his man­gled body.

Sea­mus won­dered how long it would be be­fore he had a mo­ment’s peace from the in­fer­no he was en­dur­ing. John Black­wick had told him that the de­gree of a maul­ing de­ter­mined the de­gree of the in­fec­tion. As he won­dered which par­tic­ular lev­el of Hell he was wan­der­ing through, Sea­mus came to the con­clu­sion that he must be bad­ly dam­aged. He on­ly wished he had the strength to ex­am­ine his wounds. Then, he’d have even more of an ex­cuse to kill the fe­male Reaper once he was ful­ly re­cov­ered.

He re­mem­bered ut­ter­ing those words to her be­fore pass­ing out. How she had man­aged to bring him back to the main of­fice, he didn’t know. He didn’t care. She had said her pres­ence dur­ing the as­sign­ment had been to pro­vide back up; yet, when the charge had been sound­ed, Brig­it Mal­one had re­mained be­hind in the shad­ows. Sea­mus had been left to deal with the Chu­pacabras by him­self, as he re­mem­bered it. Five to one had not been a fair fight, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter he had lost the she­laigh­ley. Yet, be­ing a true war­rior, the brave sol­dier with the blood of a fight­ing Irish­man borne from the di­rect de­scen­dents of the fear­less Fiona of leg­end, Sea­mus Flan­nery had fought hard in com­plet­ing the as­sign­ment. He had suc­ceed­ed, he re­mem­bered it all clear­ly. Brig­it had on­ly fi­nal­ly come to his aide af­ter his col­lapse. Too lit­tle, too late, Sea­mus thought.

A creak of the wood floor in the main hall pulled Sea­mus from his fiery thoughts. Brig­it had not been back to the of­fice since she had left him to roast with the vi­cious fever of the in­fec­tion. By his count, that had been a cou­ple of days gone by now. Had she fi­nal­ly re­turned?

“Oy!”

The call came out more a groan than a co­her­ent word. Sea­mus licked his lips and swal­lowed hard in the at­tempt to damp­en his vo­cal chords.

“Oy!” he called again.

It must have been more co­her­ent this time, he thought. The gen­tle creak of the wood ceased its qui­et echo off the walls of the main hall. Some­one was there. Sea­mus could feel the chill em­anat­ing from the soul that was stand­ing just out­side the closed door to his of­fice. Though he want­ed to close his eyes in the sud­den re­lief from the burn­ing of his body, he knew he couldn’t al­low him­self to be so vul­ner­able to an un­known pres­ence. In­stead, he kept his emer­ald dag­gers poised at the door, hop­ing that he would be able to sum­mon some amount of strength to try to save him­self if there were to be an at­tack.

“Who’s out there? Show yer bleed­in’ self,” he com­mand­ed, try­ing to sound stronger than he ac­tu­al­ly was. “C’mon! Show yer­self!”

Slow­ly, the door swung open and Sea­mus felt his head jerk back with the sight of the fig­ure be­fore him. The pale man (if it was a man, Sea­mus mused…) dressed in tat­tered black robes stood just in­side the door frame. His eyes were wide in fear and be­wil­der­ment.

“Who the fook are you?” Sea­mus de­mand­ed.

“Bai­ley,” came the hoarse whis­per of a re­ply.

“Do ye work here too?” A silent nod was his on­ly an­swer. “What de­part­ment?”

“Bai­ley,” the pale man said again. Sea­mus closed his eyes fi­nal­ly. The chill reach­ing out from the pale man was so sooth­ing. It al­lowed Sea­mus to fo­cus his thoughts a lit­tle more clear­ly.

“I know yer bleed­in’ name, man. What do you do for the firm?” he asked, hop­ing to get an ac­tu­al an­swer. “What is yer job?”

“Bai­ley,” the word came a third time and Sea­mus groaned in frus­tra­tion rather than pain. An in­tel­li­gent con­ver­sa­tion was ob­vi­ous­ly not go­ing to hap­pen. Sea­mus didn’t have the pa­tience to try to drag one out of the pale man ei­ther.

“Well, do me a fa­vor, Mr. Bai­ley,” Sea­mus in­struct­ed. “Find John Black­wick and bring him back. Tell him things are sore­ly amiss at the of­fice. Tell him Sea­mus said so. Do ye un­der­stand me?”

“Where?” the Bai­ley asked. Sea­mus let his eyes open and take in the pale fig­ure that sud­den­ly re­mind­ed him of all the pic­tures he had ev­er seen rep­re­sent­ing the fig­ure of Death – the con­jured im­age of what a Grim Reaper tru­ly looked like.

“Italy,” Sea­mus fi­nal­ly said, draw­ing on the in­fu­ri­at­ing mem­ory of Brig­it telling him that John had gone for a few days. “Fetch him at once,” the Irish­man in­struct­ed stern­ly. The Bai­ley nod­ded in com­pre­hen­sion and be­gan to back slow­ly from the small of­fice, tak­ing with him the cool en­er­gy that Sea­mus had been find­ing such com­fort in.

When the Bai­ley had gone, Sea­mus closed his eyes again. He could feel it re­turn­ing, the fire of the in­fec­tion cours­ing through his veins. He on­ly had a few min­utes, he knew, be­fore he would be en­gulfed in the sear­ing flames that threat­ened to scar him for all eter­ni­ty. He was lu­cid. He need­ed to gath­er his wits quick­ly and be­gin to for­mu­late his strat­egy for vengeance. Cal­cu­la­tions could be made on an­oth­er day, when the fires were fi­nal­ly gone from his be­ing. At the mo­ment, Sea­mus de­ter­mined, he had to be­gin the blue print to the end of days for Brig­it Mal­one.