He rubbed his eyes angrily and forced his body into a sitting position on the side of the bed, Stef helping to guide him into position.
“John, damn it, you have to wake up!” she hissed almost angrily, shaking him.
His head drooped, heavy and unresponsive. What in the world was wrong with him?
He slept like this often these days, ever since the dreams had stopped and he had ceased to be a Knight of the Word. He had lived up to his charge and his responsibilities and his search, and the dreams had faded and sleep had returned. But his sleep had turned hard and quick; it frequently felt as if he were awake again almost immediately. There was no sense of having rested, of slumbering as he once had. He was gone and then he was back again, but there had been no journey. Stef marvelled at the soundness of his sleep, commenting more than once on how peaceful he seemed, how deeply at rest. But he felt no peace or rest on waking, and save for the few times he had dreamed of the old man and the burning of the city, he had no memory of having slept at all.
“What’s wrong?” he managed to ask finally, his head lifting.
She bent close, a black shape in the room’s darkness. Streetlight silhouetted her against the curtained window. “I think there’s a fire at Fresh Start.”
His mind was still clouded, and her words tolled through its jumbled landscape like thick syrup. A fire?”
“Will you just get up!” she shouted in frustration. “I don’t want to call it in unless I’m sure! I called over to the night manager and no one answered! John, I need you!”
He lurched to his feet, an effort that left him dizzy and weak. It was as if all the strength had been drained from his body. He was like a child. She helped him over to the window, and he peered out into the rainy darkness.
“There,” she said, pointing, “at the back of the building, in the basement windows.”
Slowly his vision focused on the dark, squarish bulk of the shelter. At first he didn’t see anything. Then he caught a flicker of something bright and angry against a pane of glass, low, at ground level. He waited a moment, saw it again. Flames.
He braced himself on the windowsill and tried to shake the cobwebs from his mind. “Call 911. Tell them to get here right away.” He squinted against the gloom, peering down the empty streets of Pioneer Square. “Why hasn’t the fire alarm gone off?”
She was on the phone behind him, lost in the dark. “That’s what I wondered. That’s why I didn’t call it in right away. You’d think if there was a fire, the alarm . . . Hello? This is Stefanie Winslow at 2701 Second Avenue. I want to report a fire at Fresh Start. Yes, I can see it from where I’m standing . .”
She went on, giving her report to the dispatcher. John Ross moved away from the window to find his clothes. He tried a light switch and couldn’t get it to work, gave up, and dressed in the dark. He was still weak, still not functioning as he should, but the rush of adrenaline he had experienced on realising what was happening had given him a start on his recovery. He pulled on jeans, shirt, and walking shoes, not bothering with socks or underwear, anxious to get moving. There should be someone on duty at the center. Whoever it was should have detected the smoke-should have answered the phone, too, when Stef called over to see what was wrong.
She was hanging up the phone behind him and heading for the door. “I’ve got to get over there, John!” she called back to him as she swept out into the living room.
“Stef, wait!”
“Catch up to me as quick as you can! I’ll wake as many people as I can find and try to get them out!”
The door slammed behind her. Cursing softly, he finished tying the laces of his shoes, stumbled through the darkness to the front closet, pulled on his all-weather coat, grabbed the black walking stick, and followed her out.