A piercing whistle sounded. Ian slowed a fraction and changed direction abruptly. My back end slid, and I tightened my grip while I righted myself. Ian let out a brief yelp.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “Never did take those wolf-back riding lessons.”
Another report cracked behind us. Whether it actually was, or I’d just engaged in some serious wishful thinking, it sounded farther away. We were gaining ground.
Ian ran. I concentrated on gritting my teeth so they wouldn’t break while my jaw chattered with the cold and the erratic motion. Every few minutes, a call from Tory would change Ian’s course. I managed to lean into most of them and only pull out three or four hairs. Eventually the sounds of pursuit disappeared, and I dared to breathe again when Ian slowed to a fast sprint.
Tory glided down and kept pace with Ian. He shrieked, and there was worry in the sound. An instant later I felt the same black ribbon of energy that had invaded the monastery when we first met Calvin. Faint, but definitely there.
“Ela na’ar.”
The words whispered and reverberated around us like the voice of God. A shiver worked through me, completely separate from the damp and the vibrations of Ian’s motion. Something massive rippled the air. Lightning and thunder clashed in heightened crescendos, as though the storm was responding to the spell—a spell I’d heard a lot more than I wanted to lately. Fire.
Fifty feet ahead, a line of flames zipped across our path, like someone had dropped a match into a stream of gasoline. They rose fast, feeding on magic and wet wood, until we were facing an impenetrable wall of fire.
Chapter 29
Ian skidded to a full stop. Somehow I managed not to fall. But when I tried to dismount, he snapped at me until I held still.
“We have to turn around,” I said. “Change back. Maybe we can fly over this.”
A low, steady growl issued from his throat. He paced back and forth, raised his muzzle to the wind. Barked once.
Tory dove down and pulled up at the last second before he hit the ground. He banked right and flew alongside the fire wall, a dark-winged silhouette backlit with flames, a phoenix in hawk’s clothing. Occasionally he recoiled and flapped furiously, as though he’d caught a draft of heated air.
And it was hot. The flames were immense, pulsating, alive. Angry as their maker. Heat undulated from them in growing waves, parched my skin, singed Ian’s fur. But he held his ground and watched the hawk.
“Goddamn it, Ian, what are you doing? This isn’t going to stop burning.” I tried again to slide down from his back.
He whipped his head around and brought his teeth together a whisper from my arm. I took that to mean they’d sink into flesh the next time.
Tory wheeled away, let out a shrill cry, and rose in the air. He flew at the same spot in the flames a few times, as if he were challenging them. Finally, he turned away and glided over us with a low whistle.
Ian trotted a good distance away from the fire. Just when I started to feel relieved, he paced in a half circle, tensed, and crouched. And bolted directly at the flames.
“Jesus!” My first instinct was to let go—but Ian was already moving so fast that I’d just end up rolling right into the fire. So I threw up a shield, buried my face in wet fur, and prayed the crazy bastard knew what he was doing.
The roar of the flames filled the world. Ian left the ground completely, and searing heat clamped down like a fast-food restaurant grill, transforming me into a sizzling piece of meat. For an instant I felt everything in a progression of colors—yellow, orange, red, white. The blazing intensity negated sweat, crushed even the idea of breathing. My bones were melting.
After an eternity, or maybe a few seconds, we broke through. Ian landed at a sprint, and I did my best to find out whether I’d emerged looking like Freddy Krueger. Everything seemed normal except for a few throbbing patches on my face, and the smoke rolling off me in billowing clouds.
He slowed to a lope and finally stopped, sides heaving against my legs. I tumbled to the ground and laid there in sweet, cool muck, eyes closed, letting the rain soak my stinging skin. Eventually, Ian changed back; I heard him gasp and plop on the ground. I didn’t bother looking at him. “Don’t ever fucking do that again.”
“It was the lesser evil.” He almost sounded apologetic. “They are watching the skies. If we had gone over, we would have been seen. They will assume, at least for a time, that we are still on their side of the flames.”
Damn. That made sense. But I decided not to swell his head by admitting it. “How did you know we’d get through that without turning into torches?” I said. “I made a shield, but that was real fire.”
“Yes, it was. Taregan found the weakest point to pass through. And we were soaked, and traveling at a high speed.” Ian shrugged. “Do humans know nothing about fire survival?”
“No. Most of us just avoid jumping through bonfires,” I grumbled. “Where’s Tory?”
“Coming.”
A light tread approached. “You made it,” Tory said.
“I’m not so sure about that. I might be dead.” I held back a groan, pushed up to sitting, and sneezed hard. “Fuck! Okay, that hurt. Humans can die from pneumonia, you know.”
“If you die tonight, thief, I am certain it will not be from this ‘pneumonia.’” Ian got to his feet slowly. “We must keep moving.”
“This is news?” I muttered, and made myself stand. “Oh, Christ. Look at that.”
The fire was spreading. Not California-drought fast, but quickly enough to watch the progression. The sheer heat it threw out dried the next bunch of trees and caught them in the flames. Smoke poured from the blaze, blacker than the cloud-strewn sky. And the rain had already tapered off to a light mist.
My stomach clenched. “They’re crazy,” I said. “They’re going to burn the whole mountain down looking for us.”
“Vaelyn cast the spell. She likely does not care how much life she destroys in her pursuit.” Ian crossed his arms. “Their compound is no doubt protected.”
I turned away and frowned at the woods. “Yeah, but the town there isn’t. And …” Something in the endless uneven ranks of trees grabbed at my awareness. A clearing just ahead of us—one I’d definitely seen before. “Mercy. Jesus, Ian, she’s five minutes from here! She’ll never be able to get away from this.”
Tory’s brow furrowed. “Who?”
“A friend,” I said. No time for an explanation. “We have to get her out of there.”
Ian nodded. “But I do not know the way.”
“I do. I think.” I hope. At least I’d been conscious on the way. “Come on.”
I set out at a fast walk, not bothering to make sure the djinn followed. They could keep up. After a minute, my feet took over and I ran.
I’d never find the place.
The certainty weighed on me like a shroud. I didn’t know where the hell I was going. Even with the new and improved vision, every damned tree looked the same. But I ran anyway, dodging a dozen little dips and rises and roots that would’ve sent me sprawling if I’d tried this before Ian borrowed my soul, or whatever the hell he’d done.
When I hurtled into the clearing where Mercy’s place stood, I almost kept running.
Ian and Tory came right behind me. Her porch light was on, and Zephyr stood on the ground next to the steps, sporting half-filled saddlebags. I glanced back and saw the flames licking toward the night sky, probably half a mile away.
Mercy must’ve seen them too.
The front door banged open and she strode out with two little raccoons in her arms. A cloud of strong and pungent odor rolled out with her, reaching across the yard. I recognized the scent of weed immediately. Good shit.
She staggered down the porch steps, flicked a red-eyed glance at me, and did a double take. “Who in the—oh, it’s you.” Her gaze hardened. “If you bastards started that blaze, I’ll shoot ya where you stand.”
I stopped and shook my head, temporarily too winded to speak. “You’re
stoned,” I finally managed.
She snorted with laughter. “Still the smart one. Ol’ Mary Jane takes good to the mountain soil. I’d give y’all a hit, but I’m busy. There’s a fire, see?” A giggle escaped her, and she wove on her feet.
“Mercy, you won’t get away fast enough on a mule.” A pointless argument. She wasn’t exactly in a reasoning state of mind.
She set the raccoons on Zephyr’s back and unzipped one of the bags, then responded as if she hadn’t heard me. “Lightning, then,” she said. “Don’t know how it got going wet.”
“No. This isn’t a natural fire.”
“Yeah?” She coaxed the little furballs into a bag with a handful of dog food, then zipped it almost closed again. One of them chirred a little, but they didn’t try to escape. “If you ain’t started it, how do you know what did?”
“Donatti,” Tory said softly. “We might have a problem.”
Mercy’s glazed eyes moved to him. “Who’s this one?”
“This is Tory. Tory, Mercy.” Shit. We didn’t have time for introductions. “Look, we have to—”
“I’m goin’ to get Sister.” She headed back to the house.
I started after her, but Tory’s hand on my arm stopped me. “Let her go a minute,” he said. “We’re in trouble here.”
At last, I noticed the strain in his voice and really looked at him. He was falling down exhausted. Ian too. “Lemme guess,” I said. “You’re both tapped.”
He nodded. “Transformations took the last of it out of us.”
“Shit.” That left out flying away. I could barely float myself.
No way in hell I’d be able to carry even one more body through the air, let alone three plus a mule and three raccoons. “What about mirrors?” I said. “Even if she doesn’t have one, there’re windows at least.” Tiny windows, I noticed while I said it. The glass between the molded frames was only about four by four inches. None of us could squeeze through that.
Ian frowned. “You would have to cast four successive bridge spells yourself. Impossible, even for one of us. It would exhaust you.” He looked from the fire to the house, as if he were judging how long until we all got toasted. “Your new abilities are impressive, but they are earth magic. Not reflective magic.”
“Hold on,” Tory said. “What new abilities?”
Before I could answer, Mercy emerged with Sister tucked in the crook of one arm and her shotgun in the other. “Y’all better get movin’. Fire’s comin’ fast.” She kept her eyes averted while she walked to Zephyr and settled the big coon on the mule’s back. “Ain’t gonna make town. Maybe the Holler cave down the ridge.”
“You’re seriously going to hide out in a cave?”
She whirled on me. “What the fuck else ’m I gonna do? Ain’t got a helicopter up my ass. Don’t got nobody to come fetch me. Shit.” Her eyes glossed with moisture, and she turned away. “This place’s all I got. And it’s already gone. I jus’ hope Calvin makes it out.”
I almost blurted out that Calvin was all right—more or less—but that’d be way too much explaining right now. Besides, even that would be small comfort on top of losing her whole world to Vaelyn’s insanity. And there was the trifling fact that with Ian and Tory drained, we didn’t have a chance in hell of escaping the flames either.
That left two options. Die, or stop the fire. I didn’t feel like dying, and I doubted the Ridge Neck Fire Department was equipped to handle this. They probably still used a bucket brigade. So it’d be up to me.
Which meant we were screwed. But I still had to try.
“Do me a favor,” I said. “Don’t leave yet.”
Mercy glared at me. “Why? You gonna ask God to dump a lake on that blaze?”
“Not exactly.” I faced the fire, knelt, and put both hands on the ground. Tingling warmth pulsed up my arms, shot with threads of pain. It wasn’t hurting me, though. What I felt was the pain of the mountain at the unnatural scourging. Only thing was, I wasn’t sure how to put it out. So I’d just have to wing it.
Tory cleared his throat. “Donatti, what are you doing?”
“Stopping the fire,” I said. “I think.”
“Are you nuts? You can’t—”
“Leave him be, Taregan.” Ian spoke low, but there was a hesitant note of hope in his voice.
“Y’all are pullin’ my leg.” Mercy giggled. “He some kind of Injun mojo man, right? Gonna do a little dance, bring the rain back.”
Good thing she was stoned, or she’d have blasted me by now. I tried to tune them out and concentrate on whatever the hell I thought I was doing. The border of the fire was a raw, jagged line out there eating through everything. I pushed at it, thinking maybe I could churn things up, throw some dirt on the flames. Dirt was supposed to put out fire.
Nothing happened.
Too bad I didn’t have a handy lake to dump on the thing—not that I could’ve done anything if I did. I had a suspicion that water wasn’t my thing. “Come on. It’s for your own good,” I mumbled at the ground, and shoved harder.
Nothing … and then something. The warmth under my hands turned hot. A distant tremor, groaning and growing. The ground shook beneath me.
“What the fuck?” Mercy yelled over Tory’s gasp. “A goddamn earthquake? Shit, all we need’s a cloud of locusts now.”
I ignored them. The heat filled me, pulsed through my blood. Sweat broke out over every inch of my skin. An awful buzzing sound filled my head. I hoped it wasn’t Mercy’s locust comment manifesting itself.
A faint glow from the ground caught my attention. I glanced down at my hands just as Mercy let out a startled shout. Red-orange light flickered under my skin, like someone had emptied my veins and filled them with fire. I stared at them, watched the glow spread and seep through my wrists and into my arms.
At once, the sensation ramped up from hot to scorching.
I would’ve screamed if I had enough breath. They hadn’t invented a word for pain that came anywhere close to this. It was a hundred times worse than any flame curse. Fire raced through me, flooded my torso, scalded my throat. Even my toes sizzled. A hot, thick smell choked the air, bitter and sickly sweet—singed hair, charred meat, cooked blood. My stomach tried to turn, but it was burning too.
A hoarse cry rang out. It didn’t come from me. Ian dropped to one knee with a gasp. He said something, but I couldn’t even make it out, much less answer him. Apparently the soul-bind thing was giving him a taste of my stupidity. I tried to stop thinking about him.
It wasn’t hard. I had plenty of pain to occupy my thoughts.
Once the blazing light filled everything under my skin, blisters bubbled into existence on my flesh, like the stuff was a living thing forcing itself out the hard way. A huge one formed on the back of my hand and burst. Tendrils of smoke drifted from the rupture—and the edges blackened, sparked, then formed a ring of glowing red embers that ate through the remaining skin.
I was actually on fire. Not magical fire. Real burning-to-death flames.
Something primal hijacked my senses and flipped the you are on fire switch somewhere in my brain. I made a reflexive jerk and panicked when I couldn’t move. Finally I realized my hands had fused with the ground. I wrenched free, pulling clods of dirt and leaving behind moist bits of things I didn’t want to think about. Then I threw myself flat in the grass and thrashed around like an epileptic eel. Stop drop roll. Put-it-out-put-it-out-put-it-out.
I thought I was screaming, but I couldn’t be sure. It was hard to hear over the massive shaking, cracks, and pops that erupted everywhere when I started flopping.
Eventually the immediate burning stopped—either that or I’d flash-fried all my nerve endings. I rolled facedown in the dirt and went still. The only sound in the world was my own ragged breath, the only sensation a bone-deep agony that hollowed me to the core. I had no idea whether I’d succeeded. And I hurt too much to care.
A voice attempted to penetrate my ears. It almost sounded like Mercy, if someone had sho
ved a sock in her mouth and then kicked her in the stomach. There was a lot of cursing mixed into it. I managed to turn my head and open my mouth, with the vague idea of offering reassurance, but all that came out was a splintered groan.
Someone touched me. I recoiled, tried to say Don’t, and failed. My vision was a patchwork of dull red and gray. I couldn’t blink. A blotchy shape loomed in front of my throbbing eyes and hung there, shimmering like hot blacktop.
“Well done, thief.” Ian, shouting through the wrong end of an invisible megaphone. Great—now Mercy knew I was a thief. If she hadn’t gone drooling nuts watching whatever had just happened. “Very impressive. But perhaps you should refrain from attempting anything like that again. Particularly if you must drag me into it.”
I guessed that meant the fire was out. At least I hadn’t torched myself for nothing.
Ponderous scuffing sounds somewhere close. Ian hauling himself to his feet. “By the gods,” he said. “If I was not seeing this …”
Seeing what?
The instant I thought it, a ghostly image formed over the burned-out haze of my eyes. I could see what Ian saw, just like back in the cave. It still took me a minute to process what it was—the forest, or what was left of it. A wide swath of blackened, smoldering land marked the path of the fire. Torn roots buckled the ground, formed an alien landscape of ridges and craters. Charred and splintered trees stood in a few spots, but most of the area had been reduced to flattened rubble. As if some immense body had rolled around on the flames until they’d gone out.
Damn. Had I really done that?
The strain of looking through Ian’s eyes just about split my head open. I pulled back. Blackness drowned everything for a minute, and the rest of the mottled world bled back slowly around the edges. Some of the thick burnt stench dissipated and let in a breath or two of rain-scrubbed air. I still couldn’t move, but control of my eyelids mercifully returned and I blinked a few times. Scalding moisture welled in my eyes and blurred some of the patches together.
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