Flames Came Rushing//Part 4 (END)

Flames Came Rushing//Part 4 (END)

Nothing comes off. They try the scarf dry. They try wetting it with water that's collected under the grate. They even try Marten's spit, but nothing they do affects the dirt and oil coating the girl-being's skin. Once again crying sludge, Ivory backs away and retreats to her spot in the shadows.

In the meantime, the light from the grate is fading. The gold is long since gone, replaced by a garish mix of twilight blues and dirty orange streetlights. Marten and Neve sit down on the tracks and let the hum of the beetles fill their bones.

"Wow," Neve says quietly. "Wow, I mean, you should have told me she's the reason we walked all the way down here."

"Would you've believed me?" says Marten with a dry smile.

"Well…anyone else, no. I'd have given it some thought coming from you, though. You're not…you know," Neve says. He's fumbling all his words and nothing he concocts in his head comes out the way he intended. Not that his head is working very well, either. Seeing Ivory has not only shaken him, but shaken something to the surface. There's something just on the tip of his metaphorical tongue that he can't capture, no matter how he grasps for it. "So, what do we do now?"

"I've got another idea," Marten says. "She feels trapped here. That's what I first thought, when I saw her looking up at me through that grate. We're under West Plum, you know."

"No shit?"

"No shit. Anyway, I say we get her out of here, where she can be free. I marked the way well enough."

Neve eyes the pallid figure on the other side of the tunnel. "You think she could walk that far? She could barely stand up, man."

"Hm, you got a point. Maybe she'd us carry her."

Ivory does, reluctantly, consent to be carried when Marten explains their destination to her. However, when he attempts to lift her he ends up sprawled on his back and groaning in pain. Ivory doesn't move an inch, except to cast her eyes downward.

"What was that about?" Neve asks, helping his friend up.

"She's…she's like…it felt like I was trying to move the ground," Marten says. He sits back down and tries to catch his breath.

They fall silent. Purple evening and citylight are all they have left. Soon it will be completely and utterly dark, and both of the boys feel that when that happens, Ivory won't be the only strange creature lurking the tunnels.

A sudden, searing pain spurs Neve into profanity. He switches the barely-alive torch to his other hand and stares at the burns on his thumb and index finger incredulously. He'd forgotten he was even holding the burning branch, which is now more a lump of glowing charcoal.

The humming in his bones stops. Ivory is staring at him.

Heart pounding, Neve gets to his feet and approaches her slowly. He holds the barely-lit torch in front of him and says, "Is this what you want? Do you want to—"

"Neve," Marten warns. "What are you doin'?"

Neve ignores him. His green gaze is locked on Ivory's red one. Her eyes are now very, very wide, like the eyes of the anime girls he watches on imported DVDs from Japan. She's much more beautiful than ink and paper could ever be, though, and he sees that now. His initial fear of her is gone.

Neve rolls the words around on his tongue, the ones which had been evading him earlier, and says:

"Do you want to burn?"

He hears Marten get to his feet, protesting this lunatic plan, but it's already too late. There are but inches between Neve and Ivory. There is a grin on his face, hope in her eyes, and fire on both of their faces. Neve raises the torch slowly, so to protect the tiny blue flame hovering there, and then brings it to rest against Ivory's forehead.

The flames devour her. Neve, who has lit many fires in his young life, is quick to step back. Still his face feels scorched as the cooler air of the tunnel rushes around it, and he's sure in the morning he'll find his forearms lacking in hair. Probably lost his eyebrows, too.

Without thought, he throws out a hand to block Marten from getting any closer. Marten tries to push past him, obviously intent on stopping the blaze, but Neve grasps his friend as tightly as possible and pushes him away. They're on the verge of a fistfight when the singing starts and the beetles begin to rise.

Ivory is now completely engulfed in flame, and emanating from her is the most beautiful sound Marten and Neve have ever heard. Each hears something slightly different, but both hear Glory, their hometown, in her wordless song. Marten hears the cherry blossoms blooming in the springtime, the soft oceanic pulse of cars on the streets, basketballs against hot pavement and the laughter of his little sisters. Neve hears laundry flapping on the breeze, the patter of rain on rooftops, the soft murmur of his mother and her friends in the kitchen and his late father's heavy boots on the stairs.

They hear other things, but the rest is blown away by the sight of her, white and shining at the center of the flame. All the grime is burning up and falling away. Her cesspool hair is turning the color of ash and her eyelashes, eyes, the color of a noontime sky. Around her the beetles dance, drawn to the light just as the boys are. Though she has no mouth, they feel as if she is smiling at them.

The flames came rushing, and it was beautiful.

Only when they start to cough do they realize that the flames have spread to places other than Ivory's body. The tunnel is filling with smoke and their bodies are slick with sweat; the enclosed space is quickly becoming one very large oven. When they drop down below the smoke and touch the rail, it burns them and they draw back.

"What do we do?" Neve whispers. They pull their shirts over their noses, but it doesn't help much.

"Don't use up the air, for one," Marten whispers back, and then heads for the ladder beneath the grate.

The metal rungs are scalding to the touch, so they tear Marten's scarf into four pieces and use them to dull the heat. The soles of their shoes melt as they begin to climb, and the scent of burning rubber rises with them.

When he first hits the grate and it doesn't budge, Marten thinks it's all over for the two of them (Neve's bird flies through his mind in a panic, much as it must have flown through his room this morning). He can hear Neve coughing below him and chances a glance down, but catches Ivory's stare instead. She raises her arms in a quick, strong motion—none of the sickly syrup remains in her movement, only a burst of light powdered sugar—and the metal grate flies from its bearings to clatter somewhere on the pavement.

Marten and Neve climb out and into the blessedly cool evening above. In unspoken agreement they move swiftly away from the tunnel exit. Much as they would like to linger, both know that to be caught around what will certainly be a crime site would be unwise.

They stop in a random alley off Thomas Avenue and sit with their backs against the cool metal of a dumpster. Already they can hear the wail of sirens, undoubtedly firetrucks headed to put out the blaze. Neither needs hope that Ivory will be gone when they arrive—they know full well that she will be.

Streetlights hum. Doors slam. Cars rush. People speak and people shout.

(Crickets chirp and birds call and trees rustle and water drips and water runs.)

"She's the city."

Neve turns to Marten, but doesn't speak. The other boy tilts his head and stares at the twinkling lights above and beside them. Glass and stars.

"She was the land that was here before people, but she's also the city," Marten elaborates. "She is Glory."

They fall silent again, but only for a moment. Then Neve starts to chuckle.

"And I lit her on fire."