The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [177]
Our first warning was a simultaneous shout and gunshot, followed in an instant by a crisp sound of breaking glass. A stream of fire poured itself down the supporting stones and across the ground.
Holmes launched himself through the edge of the flames at Brothers' legs, but the blanket he threw back tangled across my feet. It cost me two seconds to fight clear of the encumbering wool, by which time the flame had spread into a crackling sheet the length of the altar stone. I shoved away from the igniting paraffin, cracking my head painfully on stone as I scrambled to my feet on the opposite side of the altar.
My eyes were met by a nightmare scene worthy of Hieronymus Bosch. A confusion of leaping flames and shadows was punctuated by yells and curses, then another shot, but when my eyes cleared from the blow, they were drawn to the fire that licked down the top of the stone towards the man who lay there.
My gun flew into the night as both hands reached out to drag Damian's uncontrolled body away from the flames. I dumped him on the ground and slapped at the burning shoulder of his overcoat. Once it was out—a matter of seconds—I sprinted, still crouched, to the prow of the altar-stone, where two men wrestled for control of a gun.
I jumped to hit the weapon hard with my fist, knocking it onto the altar stone, but Brothers' elbow slammed hard into my chest and sent me flying. I rolled and regained my feet, and saw Holmes stretched over the stone for the gun.
But Brothers was not interested in the revolver. His arm was moving and he took two quick steps forward, holding in the air a knife with a curved blade, gleaming and vicious in the leaping fire-light. I opened my mouth to scream a warning as I gathered myself to jump, but I knew I would be too late, long seconds too late, because the arm was flashing down towards Holmes' exposed back.
A third shot smashed the night. The descending arm lost its aim; metal sparked against stone. The knife made a skittering noise as it flew down the altar, followed by a coughing sound and the slump of a heavy body.
The flames were already beginning to die, and I drew my torch to shine it on Holmes: He had a cut, bloody but shallow, on the side of his face. Then I turned it on Brothers, and saw the bullet hole directly over his heart, and blood staining his thick overcoat near the hole.
With one motion, Holmes and I stepped clear of the altar, and saw Damian, lying where I had left him, gazing with surprise at the gun in his hand—my gun, I saw, flown from my grasp as I jerked him from the flames, fallen to the ground where he lay. His hand drooped, recovered, then sank to the ground, followed by his chin.
Holmes rolled Damian onto his back, and pulled his son's overcoat away: blood on the right side of Damian's chest, a hand's width and growing. Holmes ripped away the shirt, and exhaled in relief: The bullet had missed the lungs, and might, if we were lucky, have avoided the major organs as well.
“He needs a doctor,” I said.
“Estelle,” Damian muttered through clenched teeth.
Holmes didn't answer me.
“Holmes, we have to get him to a doctor.”
“If we do, he'll be arrested.”
I met his eyes, aghast. “You don't intend …”
“Let's at least take him to the hotel where we can see the extent of the injury. We can decide after that.”
“Holmes, no. I'll go to that farm and see if they have a telephone-see, there's already a light on upstairs, they'll have heard all this—”
He reached for the pile of blankets. “We can use one of these as a stretcher.”
“You'll kill him, Holmes!”
“Being locked up in gaol will kill him.” Holmes stared at me in the dying light of the flames; I had never seen such desperation in his face. “Are you going to help me, Russell, or do I have to carry him?”
We worked the blanket under Damian's limp weight and dragged him