The flames were Tao's.
He'd lost control. Had to have. Fuck.
I jumped over the banister, landed lightly in a half crouch, then surged upright and ran forward. The fire alarm went off, forcing me to shout as I said, "Manny, get everyone outside!"
He nodded, his face white as he herded the three customers out. I made a quick dash into the bathrooms to ensure that no one was there, then bolted for the kitchen.
I hit the doors with enough force to wrench one from its hinges. Water poured from the ceiling sprinklers and soaked me in an instant, but it wasn't doing anything to extinguish the source of the fire—Tao. He was on his knees in the middle of the kitchen floor, his arms wrapped around his chest and his entire body alight. It wasn't burning him—it couldn't, because he was now more a spirit of flame than a werewolf with pyrokinetic abilities, thanks to the fire elemental—a creature created from magic—that he'd consumed to save Ilianna's life. But his flames leapt high enough to fan out across the ceiling, and there were thick scorch marks above the stainless-steel oven surrounds—obviously, that was where the initial loss of control had happened. Yet nothing else had been set on fire, even though the intensity of the heat pouring off him had me flinching.
My gaze swept the rest of the kitchen, looking for Linda and Rachel—the other chef who was rostered on to help today. Neither of them was here, but the rear door was half open. Tao must have sent them out just before he exploded.
I scooped up tea towels from the nearby bench, dunked them in a sink that had trays soaking, then wrapped them around my hands as I approached Tao.
"Don't," he croaked. "You'll burn."
"Then fucking control it."
His gaze leapt to mine—haunted, desperate. "It's not me. It's not my fire-starting abilities—it's the elemental."
I bit my lip against the urge to say something comforting. That was not what he needed right now. "And you're both now, like it or not. You can do this, Tao. You can control it."
"If I could, I wouldn't have exploded," he ground out.
True enough. But all I said was, "Well, the only thing on fire in the kitchen is you, so don't bullshit me about not being able to control it."
I grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him toward the freezer. His entire body shook violently, as if the flames that enveloped him were physically assaulting him. Heat soaked through the towels and singed the hairs on my arms, but the flames leapt no farther up my arms—he was controlling it, even if imperfectly.
I opened the freezer, shoved him inside, then grabbed the safety-release knob and slammed the door shut behind the two of us. The flames were so fierce it felt like I'd stepped into an oven, and I briefly wondered if he'd get himself under full control before everything started melting—me included.