The fiery creature drew back, its eye sockets trained cautiously on both of them. It was wary of the man; it needed to feed desperately, for only blood could put out the flame, only blood could bring back the power as it had twice before. But the man would fight too much, too long. It needed the girl, needed her now . . .

It moved for Billie again, lunging, but Stiles drove it back with ferocious abandon, pummeling it madly, filling the air with the sharp crack of bone on bone. He ignored the heat and the pain, even when the creature’s jaw muscles came loose and stuck to his fist like melted plastic, still aflame. He continued to fight. And the Danner-thing continued to burn.

The flames were brighter now, especially within the rib cage and in the very skull itself. The sockets were no longer dark; they now blazed with soul-eating fire. And it drove what was left of Nathan Danner berserk. From somewhere, perhaps from the blackened core of his very being, Danner finally found a voice, and it screamed with an indefinable rage as it charged Stiles in desperation, catching him by the throat and hauling him into the air.

Stiles knocked the hand away, tearing the thing’s forearm loose at the elbow, and then dropped back to the ground. Immediately he torqued his body into a hard spin and his leg lashed out and dug a heel into the Danner-thing’s head and, like a cigarette flung against a wall, the skull exploded in a shower of sparks. The body remained standing. It crouched and shifted its weight, even took a step toward them. But then the flames suddenly flared up and consumed it, and the resulting blaze lit the hilltop for miles around.

Stiles didn’t know how long he stood there, watching the fire, waiting for it to die so he could scatter the ashes. The rage gradually spent itself; it left him dazed, disoriented, barely on his feet. He wasn’t sure where he had been or what he’d done, and the returning waves of pain would not permit him to remember. He was shocked to realize that the sun was already peeking over the Indiana horizon. Daylight . . . he’d thought he would never see it again. He squinted at its brightness, reveled in its warmth.

“Chris?” Billie asked softly, touching his shoulder.

He turned to her and smiled. But he wasn’t conscious when he hit the ground.

22

Chapter Twenty-Two