August 22. 11:00 pm
Tessa sat in her car three houses down from Jamie Dzubenko’s apartment. She could see lights on on the first floor of the house, but no sign of anyone moving around. She hoped Dzubenko hadn’t already left to start his sadistic festivities.
The lights of another car brightened Tessa’s rear view mirror and she turned to see Danny’s car coming slowly towards her, his headlights illuminating the darkness of the street. The sun had set about an hour ago and the clouds masked the twilight that normally kept the sky light. Tessa’s thoughts had turned to winter and the coming dark days and she cursed the summer for going by so quickly. Even with this year’s heat, she hated to see the end of the sun and the long hours of daylight.
Danny drove past her once, turned a corner past Dzubenko’s house and eventually came back around to the street. He parked two cars behind Tessa on the opposite side of the street. Within seconds, her cell phone rang.
“Hi Danny,” she said.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
“It is quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”
“What are you up to?”
“Just watching that house up the way. I heard there might be some trouble on this street.”
“Yeah I heard the same thing. Maybe starting around midnight.”
“Uh-huh.”
“The AC in my car is acting up,” Danny said. “Mind if I come join you in yours?”
“Not at all.”
Danny left his car and walked quickly to Tessa’s, crouching down in between other cars to keep out of sight in case Dzubenko happened to be looking out his window.
“You know I don’t have the car running,” Tessa said when he climbed into her passenger seat. “The AC isn’t on.”
“Oh, that’s right. Well shit I’m here now, aren’t I?”
Tessa chuckled. “If Jack finds out we’re doing this, our asses are both toast I think.”
“I think so too. But if we catch Dzubenko in the act I think we’ll be forgiven. If not, I’ll take the blame and tell them I forced you to help me.”
Tessa raised an eyebrow. “And you think they’re going to believe I let you force me? Please.”
Danny laughed. “Alright, fine. I won’t be a martyr. We’ll both go down in flames.”
“Fair enough.” Tessa took a drink from a bottle of water she had sitting in the cup holder in between the two front seats. “I haven’t seen any movement in the apartment. But the lights have been on since I got here.”
Danny glanced out the window at the night sky. “Just when I was getting used to the sun, it’s going to disappear on us again.”
“Yep. September’s right around the bend and before we know it the snow will follow.”
Tessa stopped talking as a shadow crossed Dzubenko’s window. “Did you see that?” she asked.
“I did.”
“I wonder if he’s getting ready to go out.”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough. The 23rd is officially here in about 45 minutes.” Danny opened the backpack he had carried to the car with him and took out a bottle of beer. He unscrewed the cap and took a long drink. “To Vulcanalia,” he said, raising his beer and tapping it against Tessa’s water bottle. “Here’s hoping it marks the end of Jamie Dzubenko’s reign of terror.”
****
Jamie sat on his living room floor with his candles lit in a circle around him. He breathed deeply and slowly to calm his mind and prepare his body for the festival he was about to begin. He tried not to allow the nuisance of the police on his street to disrupt his concentration.
The arrest of the FBI’s scapegoat arsonist had been such a gift that Jamie didn’t bother to think that any cops may still be onto him. But he should have known those damn detectives would be continuing their harassment. He wondered if they really thought he was so inept he would not see them parked on his street. Had they forgotten he had the ability to make himself invisible to the human eye? One trip outside to his yard and he’d seen both of those idiots sitting in the woman’s car and staring at his home.
If they wanted a show, he wouldn’t disappoint them. The two of them reminded Jamie of dogs who won’t leave a person alone even when the person makes it clear they don’t like animals. They just couldn’t mind their own business and stay out of Jamie’s.
So now he’d give them what they wanted, a front row seat to his masterpiece. In fact, he’d even bring them in as audience participation.
He’d make sure they’d regret harassing him by making them his first victims of the feast. He hoped their last thoughts would be how sorry they were to have ever crossed paths with Jamie. The thought of that made him smile.
The two nosy busybody cops would regret the day they first darkened his door when he set them on fire and watched as they both burned to death.
****
August 23. 2013 12:00 am
“Do you smell that?” Tessa asked.
“What?”
“Smoke. And I don’t mean from your damn cigarettes.”
Danny sniffed the air. “You’re right. Something’s burning.”
Tessa pointed towards a row of flames in Dzubenko’s backyard. “It’s the grass in Dzubenko’s yard!”
Danny stared at the small fire and felt his heart constrict in his chest. “He’s starting.”
They sat frozen, unsure what action to take. A siren flying by the cross street behind them made both detectives jump.
“That was a fire engine,” Tessa said.
The police radio crackled to life and the two detectives listened to the report of a fire in an abandoned building on River Street.
“His work,” Danny said. “I’m sure of it.”
As the fire in Dzubenko’s yard started to spread, Dzubenko himself emerged from his house. He stood next to the flames and stared directly at Danny and Tessa.
“He knows we’re here,” Tessa said. “He’s been watching us.”
Before either could get out of the car, Dzubenko disappeared into the smoke.
“Jesus Christ,” Danny said. “Let’s get over there.”
They each took their guns from their holsters and ran to Dzubenko’s house. Tessa pointed towards the far end. “I’ll take this side,” she called.
Danny nodded and ran around the back to the steadily growing fire. He saw Tessa on the other side of the yard, with Dzubenko coming up behind her.
“Tessa! Behind you!” he yelled.
Danny saw Dzubenko grab Tessa around the neck before she could turn and stop him. He started to run towards her just as the fire erupted and turned into a wall of flame separating him from the other half of Dzubenko’s yard.
“Tessa!” Danny screamed.
He ran around to the front of the house and towards the side where Tessa had dropped out of sight just seconds earlier. He saw nothing but the inferno Dzubenko’s yard had become. Over the roar of the flames, Danny heard chanting. The chanting Melissa and Bob had heard, he was sure of it.
“Dzubenko? You son of a bitch!”
The chanting grew faint as Danny ran to the front of the house and frantically looked through the windows, desperate for a sign of his partner. The house was empty, save for a circle of candles and an ancient book opened to what must have been Dzubenko’s spells.
He ran back to the yard, calling for Tessa again and again. As he reached the yard, the fire died out as quickly as it had begun. Nothing remained but a few dying embers. Danny ran through the smoldering grass to the spot where he had seen Dzubenko first grab Tessa. He found nothing there but her gun.
As he grabbed his phone to call Jack and ask for help, it rang, startling him and causing him to nearly drop it. He felt a gush of relief as he saw the caller ID.
“Tessa?” he answered. “You’re okay?”
“She’s okay for now,” Jamie said. “That won’t be the case for much longer though.”
“God damn you. Where are you? Where have you taken her?”
“I’m in my car right now and your partner is with me. I parked a few blocks over yesterday just in case some idiots like you were outside my house when I was ready to begin the festival.”
“You’re in your car? You know I can trace that right? You dumbass.”
“You could have traced it, yes. Except that I stole someone else’s car in order to prepare for my event. If you look you’ll see my own car is parked right in front of my place. In fact you’re probably standing next to it right now. A blue Honda?”
“Fuck you. I can run traces on all the stolen cars then. I’ll find you.”
“I’m actually hoping you will find me. So much so that I’m giving you a little hint.”
“What is it?”
“I’m taking your partner to where it all began for me. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Vulcanalia.”
Jamie ended the call before Danny could respond.
Danny stood in the street, wanting to throw his phone on the ground and smash it to bits but knowing that wouldn’t solve anything except taking away his ability to communicate with Dzubenko and, by extension, Tessa. He walked quickly back to his car, forcing himself not to look at Tessa’s car and the bottle of beer that he had just set in her cup holder minutes earlier. He didn’t even notice the increase of sirens, their noises now reverberating across the city.
Sliding into his car, he called Jack before turning on the ignition.
“Fitzpatrick?”
“Yes. I need help, Jack. Or more accurately, Tessa needs help.”
“What? What the hell happened? What are you two doing?”
“We were staking out Dzubenko.”
“What? Jesus Christ!”
“We were right about him. Now he’s got Tessa and he’s going to kill her if we can’t find her first.”
“How do you know this? What happened?”
Danny quickly explained the fire, Tessa’s disappearance, and the call made from her phone. “Dzubenko’s driving a stolen car,” he said. “We need to go through all the cars stolen in the last few days. Or maybe in the whole goddamn month. Who knows when he stole it?”
“I’ll get every officer available on it. We’ve also got fires going off all over the city. I wonder if he’s bringing her to one of those.”
“Where are they?”
“All over! All abandoned buildings so far. The first one was called in a little after midnight. Since then we’ve had five more calls. From what I’ve heard from the fire department they all seem to have started burning at the same time.”
“I don’t think he’s taking her to one of them,” Danny said. “The hint he gave was that he was taking her where he started.”
“Griffin Park?” Jack said. “Where he killed Fugate?”
“Maybe. I’ll head over there. Can you send back-up?”
“On it.”
Danny hung up without further conversation.
****
As Danny drove towards Griffin Park, he knew he was headed in the wrong direction. It was a good guess, but it was wrong. The park wasn’t what Jamie meant when he said he was going where it all started.
Danny kept driving the same way as he tried to think of another place Jamie could be headed. Where had it all started for him?
Danny swerved to the side of the road to avoid a fire truck that came speeding up behind him and was steadily blowing its horn at the few drivers on the road. He watched as the truck careened off ahead of him, hoping that it was headed towards another empty building and not a person or a house.
A house. Danny tapped his fingers on his steering wheel and thought back to his meeting with Frank Wainscott. He had been so certain that Jamie Dzubenko had burned down his family’s house. Had that been where it all started for him?
Danny quickly brought up the case file from the documents on his phone and looked up the Dzubenko address. He recognized the street name, as it was now the focus of a debate over what to do with the land. The houses had been razed as part of an economic development plan prior to the start of the recession in 2008. The company had gone bottom up in the recession and the development had been stalled for years. It was now nothing more than an abandoned street with half-built retail and office buildings that would never be finished.
That was where Dzubenko had Tessa, Danny was sure of it. He would be there now, waiting for Danny to show up. He grabbed his phone to call Jack as he turned the car around and tore off in the opposite direction, ignoring the blare of horns and speeding through a red light. Danny had no intention of making Dzubenko wait long.
****
Danny pulled into the abandoned industrial development that had once been the street where Jamie Dzubenko lived as a child and instantly felt removed from the sirens, screams, and flames that were terrorizing the rest of Fairbanks. There was nothing and no one here but Dzubenko, Tessa and himself.
A half-built parking garage stood to the left of the development entrance next to a pottery store sign with merely the shell of a building attached to it. Across the drive, a planned bookstore and café were no more than foundation and two disconnected walls. Danny had no idea where the Dzubenko house had been in this now razed neighborhood, but he knew it wouldn’t be that hard to find him, wherever he was holding Tessa. There was nowhere for him to hide here.
Dzubenko had no intention of hiding, as Danny quickly discovered when the man stepped out in front of his car. He dragged Tessa beside him, his arm locked around her neck. Danny swallowed his rage and stopped driving. He stepped out, his gun in his hand before he got out of the car.
“That gun isn’t going to do you any good Detective Fitzpatrick,” Dzubenko said.
“I beg to differ on that.”
Danny sniffed the air, smelling the unmistakable stench of burned flesh. He glanced at Tessa and noticed a smoking patch of burned skin on her arm. Her face was contorted with both pain and terror.
“You piece of shit,” Danny said.
“You mean because of Detective Washington’s arm? I just needed to keep her in line until you got here. I wanted to get you both together. The two of you have been such a thorn in my side. But back to your gun, I’m not afraid of it. I’m not one of your usual dirtbag suspects. I’m above all that. Would Vulcan be afraid of a gun?”
“Listen jackass, the only Vulcan I know anything about is Mr. Spock so your dramatic monologue is wasted on me. Let Tessa go before I show you just what my gun and I can do to you.”
As he talked, Danny remembered the amulet Madeline Locklear had given him. He kept his gun on Dzubenko as he fished in his pocket and found it. He threw it to Tessa and was amazed when she managed to catch it in spite of Dzubenko’s grip around her neck. Fear and pain clearly hadn’t slowed her reflexes.
“Hang on to that, Tessa,” Danny yelled. He felt a sliver of hope that the amulet may actually be worth something when he saw it start to brighten in Tessa’s hand.
Jamie glanced down at the now glowing amulet. His lip curled in disgust. “Is that from that quack Locklear?”
“I’m thinking she might not be such a quack,” Danny answered.
“Are you really foolish enough to think a touchy-feely moron like that can stop me? You think she has a single clue about my kind of magic?”
Danny shrugged. “No harm in trying.”
“You’re wrong about that. But your partner’s the one who is going to feel the harm.”
“What?” Tessa said, the first sound she had made since Danny arrived.
Before she could say another word, Jamie muttered something unintelligible and the amulet’s glow became a pulsating red. Within an instant, it turned to fire in Tessa’s hand. She screamed and dropped the amulet, which burned out and shriveled into dust at her feet.
“Still think Locklear might be able to stop me?”
Danny released the safety on his gun and pointed it straight at Dzubenko’s head. “I knew it was a longshot,” he said. “I’m not though. And I’m done playing games with you now, asshole. Let Tessa go and step away from her.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s not gonna take much for me to blow your head off your neck, Dzubenko. Let her go goddammit!”
Danny could feel his forehead beading with sweat and his heart begin to beat erratically in his chest. His hands shook as he pointed the gun. Thoughts of the last time he had aimed a gun at another human being flooded his mind.
“Fuck this,” he said aloud. “You won’t screw it up this time.”
“Screw what up?” Dzubenko asked.
“Nothing. I was talking to myself. And now I’m giving you one more chance. Let my partner go before I shoot you down like a goddamn dog.”
Instead of responding, Dzubenko began chanting. His eyes rolled back in his head as he spoke.
“YA zaklykayu BEELZEBUTH~, LUCIFER~,” he said. “MADILON…”
“What are you saying?” Danny yelled. “Shut up and let her go, Dzubenko!”
“SOLYMO~, SAROY ~, Vizyt!”
Flames erupted on Tessa’s already burned arm. And Aleksei Nechayev’s smug laughter echoed between Danny’s ears.
“Oh my God, no! Please, no! Danny!” Tessa screamed
“Stop chanting, Dzubenko! Shut up and stop chanting!” Danny’s hands trembled, ruining his aim on Dzubenko. “I don’t want to hit you, Tessa. I can’t get a good shot. Goddamit, let her go!”
“Pozhezha!” Jamie yelled, completely ignoring Danny’s commands. “Spalyuvaty!”
Tessa’s leg caught fire as the flames on her arms jumped to her chest. Her screams turned to unintelligible cries of anguish.
“Spalyuvaty!”
“Shut the fuck up!!” Danny screamed.
Danny fired the gun and hit Dzubenko in the arm. He immediately stopped chanting, his trance-like state shattering along with his humerus. He let go of Tessa and looked at Danny in amazement.
“You shot me.”
Tessa fell to the ground, rolling frantically to extinguish the flames.
Danny fired the gun again, this time hitting Dzubenko in the chest and causing him to fall to his knees.
As Dzubenko opened his mouth to speak, Danny fired again. His shot hit Dzubenko’s heart, silencing him for good. Danny stepped closer and fired again. Dzubenko’s blood splattered onto his face and clothing.
He heard the sound of approaching sirens and knew Jack and the other police officers had arrived on the scene. He stood over Dzubenko’s dead body and kept firing until his magazine was empty.
****