The Mephisto Club

walking toward her. Her breathing now coming in sobs, she pushed herself up to a sitting position. He halted by the fireplace and stood backlit by the flames, like a dark figure emerging from the inferno. He gazed down at her.
    “Somehow, you always manage to do it, Lily,” he said. “You’re always the one causing me trouble.”
    She scrabbled backward in retreat, but her shoulders bumped up against a chair and she could move no farther. Frozen in place, she stared up at Dominic, at the man he had become. He still had the same golden hair, the same striking blue eyes. But he had grown taller, his shoulders broader, and the once-angelic face had acquired sharp, cruel angles.
    “Twelve years ago,” he said, “you killed me. Now I’m going to return the favor.”
    “You have to watch her,” said Edwina. “She’s quick.”
    “Didn’t I tell you that, Mother?”
    Lily’s gaze snapped to Edwina, then back to Dominic.
The same height. The same eyes.
    Dominic saw her look of shock and said, “Who else would a fifteen-year-old boy turn to when he’s in trouble? When he’s climbed out of a flooded car with nothing but the clothes on his back? I had to stay dead and out of sight, or you would have turned the police on me. You took away all my options, Lily. Except one.”
    His mother.
    “It was months before my letter reached her. Didn’t I always say she’d come for me? And your parents never believed it.”
    Edwina reached out to caress her son’s face. “But you knew I would.
    He smiled. “You always keep your promises.”
    “I kept this one, too, didn’t I? I delivered her. You just needed to be patient and finish your training.”
    Lily stared at Edwina. “But you’re with the Mephisto Foundation.”
    “And I knew how to use them,” said Edwina. “I knew just how to entice them into the game. You think this is all about you, Lily, but it’s really about
them.
About the damage they’ve done to us over the years. We’re going to bring them down.” She looked at the fire. “We’ll need more wood. I’ll go out and get some.”
    “I don’t think it’s necessary,” said Dominic. “This building’s as dry as a tinderbox. All it takes is a spark to set it off.”
    Lily shook her head. “You’re killing them all…”
    “That’s always been the idea,” said Edwina. “They’ll sleep right through it.”
    “Not nearly as much fun as killing Joyce O’Donnell,” said Dominic. “But at least you’re awake to enjoy it, Lily.” He picked up the poker and shoved the tip deep into the flames. “Convenient thing about fire. How completely it consumes flesh, leaving nothing but charred bone. No one will ever know what your death was really like, because they’ll never see the cuts. The sear marks. They’ll think you simply perished like the others, in your sleep. An unlucky accident, which only my mother will manage to survive. They’ll never know that you screamed for hours before you died.” He pulled the poker from the fire.
    Lily stumbled to her feet, blood streaming down her hand. She lunged toward the door, but before she could reach it, the two Dobermans darted in front of her. She froze, staring at their bared teeth.
    Hands closed around her arms as Edwina dragged Lily backward, toward the fireplace. Shrieking, Lily whirled around and flailed out blindly. She felt the satisfaction of her fist thudding into Edwina’s cheek.
    It was the dogs that again brought her down, both of them hurling themselves at her back, sending her sprawling.
    “Release!” Dominic ordered.
    The dogs backed off. Edwina, clutching her bruised face, aimed a punishing kick at Lily’s ribs, and Lily rolled away, in too much agony even to draw a breath. Through a haze of pain, she saw Dominic’s shoes move closer. She felt Edwina grasp her wrists and pin them against the floor. She looked up, into Dominic’s face, into eyes that reflected the fire’s glow like burning coals.
    “Welcome to Hell,” he said. In his hand was the hot poker.
    Lily twisted, screaming, as she tried to wrench free, but Edwina’s grasp was too powerful. As Dominic lowered the poker, she turned away, cheek pressed to the floor, eyes closed against the pain to come.
    The explosion sprayed warmth across her face. She heard Edwina give a gasp, heard the poker thud to the floor. And suddenly Lily’s hands were free.
    She opened her eyes to see the two Dobermans sprinting across the room toward Jane Rizzoli. Jane raised her