Page 74 of Demon's Desire
Before I could argue, he went to the door and walked right through it. I sighed, glancing around once again. I had a strange feeling that I was being watched, but I couldn’t see anyone down either street. It was probably just a feeling that came with committing crimes like breaking and entering.
After a few seconds, Soul pushed the back door open and nodded at me. “There’s no one here for the moment. I’ll stay alert though.”
“Good.” I stepped inside. We were back in the kitchen. “Are there any security cameras in here?”
“I checked, but they’ve all been turned off.” He shrugged. “I’m assuming they’re reviewing all the footage from the night of the fire. That or they just removed everything valuable and don’t think anyone will bother breaking in. Either way, you’re good.”
“Alright.” I started walking through the kitchen. We exited out into the bar on the first floor of the business. All the liquor had been cleared out, presumably to go to the other bars that the owner had.
Soul headed in front of me and led the way up the stairs. About three steps up was where I noticed light burn marks. From there, they only got worse. The stairs hadn’t been turned to ash at least, but the paint had been scorched on the walls and the steps.
The actual dance floor upstairs was even worse. The entire area smelled like smoke, even now, a few days after the actual fire. The walls were almost all gray and black. The windows had all been busted, so it was cold. It looked like most of the furniture had been cleared out, but there were two charred bar stools that had been knocked over in the chaos.
“Wow…” I whispered as I glanced around the room. “I’ve never seen something like this before… I mean, not after the fact. I haven’t been back to Torie and Mica’s place yet.”
“Their apartment isn’t nearly this bad, or they wouldn’t have been able to move back in,” Soul informed me as he walked over to the back corner of the room. There was a slightly lighter spot on the floor that was the size and shape of the DJ equipment, but that had been removed. “Dammit! All of this stuff was here yesterday. I wanted to give it a closer look.”
“Hm…” I was trying to search for the uneven burn patterns that Soul had mentioned. To me, it just looked like the entire room had been covered in flames. “Well, there’s still stuff here at least. Why don’t you show me what you were talking about before?”
“The burn marks were what was strange to me,” he sighed. “Are there any articles about the fire? What have the police said?”
I pulled out my phone and searched for any information. As I did, I moved closer to the window. It was freezing, but at least the air was a bit clearer. “Hm… It says authorities are still investigating the origin of the fire… but that they suspect it was just an electrical malfunction.”
“If it were an electrical problem, wouldn’t the speakers and shit be burned the worst?” he asked.
“Not necessarily.” I shrugged. “The electrical problem could have been from a light bulb or an outlet. The music equipment might not have been the cause.”
He frowned as he walked over to the spot where the equipment had been. I turned around, glancing by the bar. There was a set of light switches against the back wall. I walked over in that direction and looked closer. Some of the plastic on the outlet cover had melted around one of the corners, but other than that, it was just covered in soot. I reached into my purse and pulled out a makeup wipe, then used it to grab the switches and flip them all on.
Soul jumped up when the lights above his head turned on. I looked up and started counting light fixtures. There were over thirty fixtures, but there were just as many light bulbs, and each of them were burning just fine.
“Hm… So, not a bulb malfunction,” I commented, switching the lights off. “Where did the fire start?”
“We were already on the stairs, I didn’t see.” He shook his head. “I just heard someone shout.”
“Yeah…” I moved back over to the top of the stairs where I’d been that night and closed my eyes. “Hm… I can’t be sure, but I think… that the first person who shouted ‘fire’ was around… there. Where you’re standing.”
“Next to the music equipment,” he commented, frowning.
“What was so strange about that?” I asked. “Say it was the DJ equipment. Why is that weird?”
“Because the speakers and the soundboard were barely scarred,” he explained. “It was like the fire got to them last.”
“How is that possible?” I started heading in his direction. “How did the fire destroy the entire room except the sound stuff?”
“It’s not,” he muttered. “Especially if the fire started in this part of the room.”
He turned around and started to examine the area. I walked over to where he’d been standing, right where the soundboard had been stationed. This seemed like the place where I’d heard the scream from. I found an outlet against the wall and knelt down in front of it, making sure not to put my knees on the sooty ground. I took the same makeup wipe from before and rubbed one half of the outlet. Immediately, almost all the soot came off from the plastic, even right around the receptacles.
“Soul?” I called. I immediately heard his footsteps heading back in my direction. When he approached, I pointed at the outlet. “If this was what caught on fire, would all the soot clean off like that?”
“No.” He knelt beside me and reached out to rub the clean plastic of the outlet. “No, it wouldn’t. Not right around the plug itself. It would be charred right here. You wouldn’t be able to see any white.”
“So it wasn’t an outlet fire. Not this one anyway,” I pointed out. I dropped my head to take a breath through my shirt, just to try to filter some of the smell of smoke, when something caught my eye. Suddenly I stood up and took a step back. Right below my feet where I’d been crouching, there was a pair of footprints.
At first I wondered if it was just a pattern left by Soul’s feet in the ash. Still, something about that didn’t seem quite right. I reached down to touch the floor where the footprints were, then quickly pulled my hand back.
“What is it?” Soul asked, leaning over to look at the prints.