4. Devoured by flames
He knew something was wrong before he even saw the hotel. The commotion was not a good omen and ashes were already swirling in the air when Arthur rounded the corner and the inn loomed ahead of him.
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He was on fire. His clients mingled with the astonished and frightened passers-by in the street. The fire had spread virulently and was showing through almost every window. The tall buildings had hidden the black smoke that was rising into the sky and that at any moment would cover the sun itself.
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Arthur pounced on the worker who had served them that morning.
– The man who came with me, did you see him leave? – He asked grabbing her by the shoulders.
– I don't know–, the man answered.
He went from person to person, asking everyone he had come across that day if they had seen Peter. No one knew how to answer him. Just when he was about to throw in the towel, considering whether it was worth going in to look for him or assuming that he had managed to escape, a woman who had heard him ask intervened.
– He's still inside.
Arthur cursed under his breath, and before anyone else could stop him, he ran out the hostel door, straight up the stairs. He only stopped for a few moments to dip a handkerchief in one of the buckets of water that the neighbors carried to cover their mouths. Shouts behind him told him to stop, but Arthur ignored them.
Inside the building the heat was scorching, and her damp handkerchief gave her relief for a very short time. He hurried up the stairs, the ceiling was already on fire and it wouldn't take long for it to collapse.
He advanced to his room avoiding the sources of fire as much as he could. The door was open. For a second, that raised his hopes that Peter had made it out after all.
However, when he peeked inside he noticed how his soul fell at his feet. Peter was there, his body was stretched out on the ground, half already engulfed in flames.
He looked away from that gruesome image to find another person staring back at him across the hall.
The fire, the smoke and the eyes that had been irritated by the mixture of the two previous ones made it difficult for him to see. Although not enough to not see the chandelier that adorned his coat.
With her heart in her throat and her hand clinging to the book that Taylor had given her and that was still hidden in his own jacket, she rushed back outside, feeling her lungs burn.
He had to get out of there, he had to run, he had to hide.
The British Museum and its incessant trickle of tourists was the only one he came across that he considered safe. He climbed her steps and tried to lose himself among the works of art and relics from the ancient world, allowing himself to stop for a moment to catch his breath.
It was the moment when a hand clung to his shoulder.