14. House Burning Down

Place is on fire, an’ then some. Jayne don’t even slow down.

A weeks’ worth of booze and brawling pull at his muscles, and he pushes it away. No time. He ain’t pulled his whole life down around him to lose her like this.

Smell of burnt sugar heavy on the air, ash blown in the icy wind. Chou ma niao place like this ain’t even got a fire service, he’ll bet, gonna be a mess of folks with buckets, and that ain’t enough. Still fires burn fierce and fast, and he has a picture in his mind of them rows of bottles.

Windows are blown, crazed from the heat, but the roof is still intact. Means the upper floor should still be there. Long as the stairs hold...

Tearing off a sleeve, dragging it through the snow, wrapping it over his mouth. Door‘s designed to keep out most things, but not six foot four of determined and frightened mercenary. Nothin’ fancy, just a shoulder into it, takes the lock out of the frame. Prays to anyone may be listenin’ as he dives into hell.

Kitchen ain’t nothing but a firepit, timbers of the wall blown in and the plumbing skewed from the wall. Takes it in, in a glance. Blast’s thrown the furniture over and it adds to the chaos, smell of burnt horsehair and feathers, and books flutterin’ like wounded birds.

Three of his strides in to the left and the bottom stair, there’s twelve, take ‘em two at a time, second door on the right and please God let her still be breathin’, let the floor hold, let the gorram floor hold, hot even through his boots, feeling the hairs on his arms crisp in the heat, but there’s the door through the smoke...

0000

Mal can’t even take the time to swear after him - he’s too busy.

“Reckon on the gorram still...”

Gunshots over the flames, distinctive.

Mal and Zoe look to each other. Then, like old times, Zoe low and fast, sweeping right as he goes left.

Somewhere ahead of them, an aircar lifts off, listing heavily to starboard and limping fast back to Southam. A few mor