Chapter 40: Fire Breather

A sharp pain shot through my knee.

“Owww!” I groaned, jolting awake.

I blinked several times, my head pounding as if someone had stuffed a drum inside my skull. The room spun slowly before my vision finally focused.

Timi was standing above me.

He had his arms crossed and an unimpressed look on his face.

“Get your ass up,” he said flatly.

I groaned again and pushed myself up from the floor. Only then did I realize I was shirtless, my back aching from sleeping on the hard ground. I looked around the living room and frowned.

The place was a disaster.

Plastic cups were scattered everywhere. Empty alcohol bottles rolled across the floor whenever someone moved. Ash from cigarettes and other things covered the table, and the couch cushions were thrown everywhere like a small hurricane had passed through during the night.

The music had stopped, but the faint ringing in my ears remained.

I rubbed my temples.

“What the hell happened last night…” I muttered.

Timi ignored the question.

“Come,” he said, already heading for the door. “Let’s get rid of Pierre.”

That statement alone was enough to wake me up properly.

I grabbed a shirt from the couch—one I hoped was mine—and pulled it over my head before following him outside.

The moment I stepped into the daylight, the sun hit my eyes like a flashbang.

“Jesus—” I squinted, raising a hand to block the brightness. The morning sun over Paris was painfully bright after the chaotic night we’d had.

The street was quiet now.

No carnival music.

No crowds.

Just the distant hum of a city waking up.

We walked across the driveway toward the garage. The air smelled fresh compared to the stale alcohol and smoke inside the house.

Timi reached the garage door and pushed it open.

The inside was dim, the light barely creeping through the opening.

And there he was.

Pierre’s lifeless body lay exactly where we had left it the night before.

Timi walked toward it like he was dealing with nothing more than a piece of trash that needed to be taken out.

“Well,” he said casually, cracking his knuckles, “let’s finish cleaning up our little mess.”The moment the garage door opened wider, the smell hit us.

It was horrible.

The stench of a decaying body had already begun to spread through the enclosed space, thick and sour, clinging to the air like something alive. My stomach twisted instantly.

“Jesus…” I muttered, quickly covering my nose with my palm.

Timi did the same, his face tightening in disgust.

“Let’s make this quick,” he said through his hand.

We walked toward Pierre’s body. Even in the dim light of the garage, the grayish tone of his skin and the stiffness of his limbs made it clear he had been dead for hours.

Using our free hands, we grabbed him.

I took his legs while Timi lifted his upper body.

“On three,” Timi said.

“One… two… three.”

We lifted him off the floor. His body was stiff and heavier than I expected, his head hanging awkwardly to one side as we carried him toward the back of the garage.

There was a long steel trash can sitting against the wall.

Timi kicked the lid off.

“Perfect,” he said.

We shoved Pierre’s body inside, but it wasn’t easy.

He barely fit.

His legs had to be forced down, his shoulders pressed inward so the lid could eventually close. For a moment it looked like the trash can might tip over from the awkward weight.

“Push his arm down,” Timi said.

I forced Pierre’s arm deeper inside until it finally slid into place.

Timi slammed the lid down.

“Good enough.”

He grabbed the handles of the long steel can and began dragging it toward the garage door. The metal scraped loudly against the concrete floor.

I helped him push from the side until we finally hauled it outside into the open driveway.

The fresh air hit my lungs immediately.

Both of us bent forward slightly, panting.

“God… that smell…” I said, taking deep breaths of the morning air.

Timi wiped sweat from his forehead.

“Yeah. Let’s not do that again.”

I glanced around the quiet street, suddenly feeling exposed.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked. “Doing this out in the open?”

Timi looked around once, calm as ever, then shrugged.

“It’s fine.”

He tapped the side of the metal trash can casually.

“No one’s going to suspect two guys are burning a corpse in a trash can.”

Timi stepped closer to the steel trash can and stared down at Pierre’s body.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then his expression changed slightly—his eyes narrowing in concentration.

A second later, a faint orange glow appeared inside the trash can.

Whoosh.

Flames suddenly burst to life, spreading rapidly across the corpse. The fire crackled loudly as it devoured the clothes first, then began licking at the pale, stiff flesh beneath.

I stared at him, both impressed and uneasy.

“You have to be careful with that,” I said quietly. “What if someone sees you do that?”

Timi didn’t even look at me. His eyes remained fixed on the burning body.

“Who would believe them?” he replied calmly.

I watched the flames rise higher, the heat radiating from the metal can as the fire consumed Pierre’s body. The smell of burning flesh mixed with the already horrible odor from earlier.

After a few moments of silence, curiosity got the better of me.

“Can you teach me how to do that?” I asked. “Set things on fire with my mind?”

Timi chuckled softly.

“How old are you again?”

“Twenty-three.”

That made him laugh outright.

“You still have a long way to go,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re still a baby vampire.”

I frowned slightly. “How long did it take you to learn?”

He shrugged.

“I didn’t learn it.”

That got my attention.

“I was born with it,” he continued. “My mother was a witch. That makes me a witch too… just like Juliet.”

I glanced at him in surprise.

“But if you want to do what I do,” he added, nodding toward the fire, “you’ll have to learn spells. Real ones. And those take decades to perfect.”

I watched the flames chew through the body slowly.

“Maybe someday I’ll start learning.”

Timi smirked.

“Maybe someday.”

Eventually the fire died down, leaving nothing but charred bones and blackened fragments at the bottom of the can.

Just as the flames settled, we heard a door open.

Both of us looked up.

A man had stepped out of the house next door.

He walked across his yard until he reached the small fence separating his property from Pierre’s. It took me a second to recognize the house—it was the one Collette and her sisters lived in.

This had to be their uncle.

The man leaned against the fence, studying us carefully.

“Who are you two?” he asked.

Timi spoke quietly to me without turning his head.

“Stay here with the trash can.”

Then he walked calmly toward the fence.

“We’re your new neighbors,” Timi said casually. “At least… for a little while.”

The man crossed his arms.

“My nieces came home this morning,” he said slowly. “When I asked where they were, they told me they spent the night at Pierre’s house.”

He gestured toward the building behind us.

“I found that strange. Pierre was a loner.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“And they said he rented his house to some tourists from Nigeria.”

He looked between us.

“Is any of that true?”

Timi nodded calmly.

“They weren’t lying to you, sir. That’s exactly what happened.”

The man still looked suspicious.

“Well,” he said, “I don’t have Pierre’s number. So there’s no way for me to confirm that.”

Timi gave a polite shrug.

“Well, I’m sorry I can’t help you with that.”

The man’s eyes drifted past Timi toward me… and the trash can.

Thin strands of smoke were still rising from it.

He looked back at Timi.

“What are you burning so early in the morning?”

Timi didn’t hesitate.

“We made quite a mess last night,” he said casually. “So we decided to clean up and burn it.”

The man frowned.

“Why not just throw it away?”

Timi shrugged again.

“This is how we do it in Nigeria.”

The man stared at him for another moment, clearly unsure whether to believe any of it.

Finally he sighed.

“Whatever.”

He turned slightly toward the house.

“I’ll be seeing you soon, Mr…?”

“Timi,” he replied.

The man nodded.

“Victor,” he said, introducing himself.

Then he walked back into his house, leaving the two of us standing beside a smoking trash can full of burnt bones.Timi walked back toward me once Victor disappeared into his house.

I let out the breath I didn’t even realize I had been holding.

“Wow… that was really close,” I said, shaking my head. “I told you we shouldn’t have done this out here.”

Timi didn’t look the least bit concerned.

“We didn’t get caught,” he replied calmly. “That’s all that matters.”

Then he looked down into the trash can at the charred remains. Only blackened bones were left now,

brittle and cracked from the fire.

Timi muttered something quietly under his breath.

The words were too low for me to understand.

For a second nothing happened… then the bones began to crumble.

Not slowly.

Instantly.

The skeleton collapsed in on itself as if it had turned fragile overnight. Within seconds the remains dissolved into a fine grey dust at the bottom of the can.

My eyes widened.

“That’s… insane,” I said, staring into the container.

Timi glanced at me with a smug little smirk.

“Get rid of it.”