Demon's Dance

by Keri Arthur

  “When Liz’s gut suggests a certain course of action,” Belle explained, “the wise should listen. It tends to be right more than it’s wrong.”

  “And in this case,” I added, “it’s suggesting that we don’t take this soucouyant anywhere near that house.”

  Ashworth grunted. “That does make sense, actually. If the spells around the younger one are fading in any way, it could lead to the older one sensing her presence.”

  “Are we going to try and evacuate those inside the house?” Eli asked. “Or do you think it’s already too late?”

  “Liz,” Monty said at the same time. “Attention this way.”

  “Sorry.” I tuned the others out and then nodded. As one, Monty and I picked up the threads of our spells and once again began shaping the sphere into something that would go into the jerry can. With a bit of effort and a whole lot of sweating, we succeeded.

  After the lid was screwed on tight again, I glanced at Aiden and said, “Is there more rope in your truck? We left the other one back at the reservoir.”

  He nodded. “In the right rear storage compartment.”

  “Be careful in there, all of you,” I said. “I really don’t like the feel of this.”

  “The three of us should be able to handle her,” Monty said.

  I couldn’t help glancing at Ashworth. His expression suggested he was thinking the same thing as me—that pride often came before a fall.

  But I hoped that wasn’t the case here.

  I picked up the jerry can and moved back to Aiden’s truck. Belle climbed into the driver seat, adjusted it to fit her longer legs, and then took off. We’d barely gone half a mile down the road before we spotted the dam—it was large, long, and oval in shape. At the far end of it was a jetty that looked close to collapse. The dam had obviously been a popular swimming hole at some point in its life, but if the jetty was anything to go by, hadn’t been used in a very long time.

  Either that, or the kids who used it had something of a death wish.

  Belle let the truck roll down the hill then pulled off the road and stopped. I grabbed the jerry can and climbed out. Maybe it was simply a case of me getting weaker, but the damn thing seemed heavier than before.

  I walked across to the wire fence, shoved the jerry can onto the other side, and then carefully pressed down a strand of barbed wire and climbed through. Belle grabbed the rope from the back of the truck and then followed.

  “Is that dam going to be deep enough?” she said, uncertainty in her voice.

  I studied the exposed banks and muddy water for a second. “If it was used as a swimming hole in the past, it has to be fairly deep. With any sort of luck, there’ll be at least six feet of water in the middle section.”

  “Good,” Belle said, “because in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a whole lot of heat radiating from that jerry can, and I rather suspect it means the spells are failing. Rapidly.”

  “I suspect you’re right.” My voice was grim. “That’s why the deeper that dam is, the better it’ll be. The soucouyant may be agitated, but I doubt it’d be stupid enough to melt the one thing that’s protecting it.”

  “Unless it hasn’t the capacity to sense water.”

  “Oh, I think it has. It didn’t start getting active again until Monty dragged it out of the water.”

  Belle frowned at me. “How do you know it wasn’t active in the water, given the water would have been cooling the container as fast as the soucouyant was heating it?”

  A smile twisted my lips. “Guess.”

  Belle grimaced. “The wild magic?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sensible people would just salt this thing now and be done with it.”

  “Except if they don’t find the other soucouyant on that farm, we may still need this one to track it.”

  We walked up the dam’s bank and stopped at the top. “We’re going to need something to weigh it down,” I said. “Otherwise it might just float.”

  “Not much in the way of rocks around here.” Belle paused. “What about a thick tree branch?”

  “That’ll do.”

  While Belle went to retrieve one, I walked around the bank to the jetty. Close up, it looked in even worse shape, but the water was at least darker toward the end of it, suggesting it was deep.

  Belle came back with a thick tree branch. We looped the rope around it to secure it, then I carefully made my way onto the jetty. The wood creaked and groaned under my weight and at every step felt like it might just collapse. It didn’t, thankfully. I knelt, dropped the soucouyant into the water and then, once it had sunk, tied the rope to one of the struts, out of the immediate sight of anyone who might wander by.

  I was making my way back along the jetty when the blast of energy hit and sent me stumbling. Belle swore and lunged forward, grabbing my arm before I tipped into the water, then hauling me back to the safety of the bank.

  But the blast hadn’t come from our soucouyant.

  It had a more distant feel than that.

  I swung around, fear clawing at my gut. And saw a huge fireball erupt skyward—one that came from the area where Aiden and the others were.

  Ten

  “No!” The denial was torn from my throat.

  Belle didn’t say anything. She just grabbed my hand, forcing me into motion when my mind and my limbs seemed frozen. She lifted the barbed wire, helped me through, and all but tossed me into the truck.

  As the engine roared to life, I took a deep breath and tried to think. To feel.

  And what I didn’t feel was despair.

  Or the wild magic.

  And surely if Aiden was dead or severely injured, Katie would have come screaming for my help.

  Unless, of course, she was too far away to feel his demise.

  Belle turned the truck around and then flattened the accelerator. The tires spun for several seconds and then the truck took off up the hill. We all but flew over the crest, and it was only then that the full calamity became evident.

  The beautiful old house had been blown to pieces. The blast had also caught Ashworth’s truck, and it was now lying on its left side in the grass on the other side of the road. But there was no sign of the vehicle that had been parked in front of the house; either it had been utterly destroyed by the blast or the people staying there had been successfully evacuated. And if that were the case, then surely it meant Aiden and the others were also safe.

  I forced my gaze beyond the smoking ruins to the old shed where I’d sensed the soucouyant’s presence. It, too, had been hit by the blast, and was little more than a blackened pile of wood and metal.

  There was no sign of movement anywhere that I could see and, despite my certainty that they couldn’t be dead, that I somehow would have known if they were, dread crept into my heart.

  Belle touched my knee and squeezed gently. She didn't say anything. She didn’t need to. Her fear ran through the back of my thoughts, as fierce as my own.

  She braked when we neared the now broken gate. The truck came to a sliding halt and the resulting dust plumed around the cabin. I scrambled out and ran for the house.

  “Wait,” Belle yelled after me.

  I didn’t. But I did gather a repelling spell around my fingertips. I had no idea how effective it would be against the soucouyant if she was still here—and it didn’t feel like she was—but given the force she’d leveled against the house would have at least partially drained her, it probably wouldn’t be ineffective, either.

  I slowed as I neared the still smoking ruins. There were bricks, metal, and bits of burning wood scattered everywhere—on the ground, and in the trees. However, the bulk of debris lay in one gigantic pile in what would have been the middle of the old building. The tin roof lay on top of it, its edges looking rather like melted cheese. Underneath this, deep in the heart of that ruined pile, was the yellow-white glow of coals. The soucouyant’s flames must have been sun-fierce to cause t
his amount of damage. If anyone had been inside, there’d be little left but scraps of charred bone.

  I rubbed my arms and thrust away the images that rose. They weren’t dead. I had to believe that.

  Belle stopped beside me and hauled a water gun out of the backpack. She must have seen my look, because she immediately said, “It may not be much, but it just might be better than magic at this point in time.”

  A fair enough comment given three witches more powerful than either of us apparently hadn’t been able to contain—let alone kill—the soucouyant. I looked beyond the smoking pile of rubble, but there was no immediate sign of movement. Maybe the blast had knocked them out. I crossed mental fingers, toes, and everything else I possibly could, and carefully picked my way around the building. The old shed was little more than a few burned sheets of tin roofing and a couple of blackened stumps. But as I neared it, energy stirred across my senses. The soucouyant had indeed stayed in this place—her presence still lingered despite the fact she appeared to have fled.

  I skirted around the shed’s remains and then stopped again to scan the area. There was a hip-height fence a hundred or so feet away and, beyond that, a field in which there were a number of buildings and water tanks. The psychic part of me remained stubbornly mute, but the four men weren’t in the yard, so they obviously had to be in one of those other buildings.

  Unless, of course, they’d literally been blown to smithereens.

  “They’re not dead—I can feel their thoughts now, though they’re somewhat fuzzy, as if there’s some sort of barrier between me and them,” Belle said. “They’re in the next field, somewhere behind that big shed.”

  Relief surged, and all I wanted to do was run into the field and find them. But we had no idea if the soucouyant was still here and the last thing I wanted was to jeopardize anyone’s safety through one incautious action.

  The small metal gate creaked as I opened it, but the fact that it was even standing was surprising. Perhaps most of the soucouyant’s force had been directed at the house... although why would she have done that if the men were out here in the field rather than in or near the house?

  I’d barely stepped through the gate when something rattled to my right. I immediately stopped and half raised my hand, the repelling spell buzzing like hornets around my fingers. The sound appeared to have come from near the shed, but the side facing me was open, and there wasn’t much inside other than a few bits of machinery.

  “They’re definitely behind it.” Belle paused and frowned. “In a large body of water, from the sound of it. You go around this side. I’ll take the other.”

  “Be careful.”

  “If that bitch comes near me, her face is going to get blasted with water.”

  I half smiled. “That’d be one way to test our theory out, but I’d actually rather you didn’t have to.”

  “On that, we both agree.”

  She moved on cautiously. As the rattle sounded again, I quickly walked to the end of the shed and then paused. The ground here was wet and there were large puddles of water everywhere—no doubt a result of the closest water tank being little more than a melted plastic mess. The backwash of the soucouyant’s heat had obviously hit it. There were five others beyond it, but all of them metal and, at least at first glance, intact. There were also a couple of discarded tanks lying on their sides in the yard behind the shed, but these were so old they were little more than rusty skeletons. They certainly wouldn’t have offered much in the way of protection against the sort of heat that could melt a plastic tank.

  I glanced back to the tanks lining the shed and, in that instant, saw one of the sheets of tin covering the second tank move just a little.

  I ran over. “Aiden? Ashworth? Are you all in there?”

  “Yes,” Aiden said. “And we’re all okay, but it appears we’re stuck.”

  The relief that ran through me was so fierce that I had to blink back sudden tears. Which was ridiculous given Belle had already told me they were alive. I took a deep breath, then released the repelling spell and moved around the tank, looking for the opening. There wasn’t one. “How in the hell did you get in there?”

  “This sheet was loosely covering the opening,” Aiden said. The bit of tin rattled again as someone hit it. “But it must have fused when the backwash of heat hit the tank.”

  I stared up at the sheet of tin in question. It had more than fused—the ends of the tin had melted and then set against the side of the tank. They were damn lucky to have gotten inside before that happened, because if that wave had hit any of them.... I shivered.

  “I’ll see if we can pry it open.” I silently asked Belle to see what she could find in Aiden’s truck, and then added, “How come you were even close enough to climb into the tank? And why would the soucouyant hit the house rather than the shed and these tanks?”

  “Eli and I concocted an illusion spell once we’d evacuated the house,” Ashworth said. “It made her think we were there when we were actually out here.”

  “But she would have known the truth the minute you tried confining her.”

  I looked around for something to stand on. If I were to have any hope of prying open the sheet of metal, it would probably be better if I did it from above rather than below. Especially given the melt factor here.

  “We never got that far,” Monty said. “The bitch woke before Ashworth and I could finish placing our spell stones.”

  “It was the illusion spell that saved us,” Ashworth said. “Her attack on the house gave us time to get in here.”

  “But she must have realized her mistake the minute she demolished the house, so why didn’t she come after you?”

  I found an old metal barrel and rolled it toward the tank—almost running over Aiden’s phone in the process. He must have tossed it clear before he dove into the water. I shoved it into my pocket and then stood the barrel on its end and clambered up. Belle came around the corner carrying what looked like a wood splitter and one of those hooked pry bars.

  “She didn’t come after us because she couldn’t see us,” Eli said. “I cast a second illusion the minute she woke, and it provided a few brief but very vital seconds to haul our butts into this water tank.”

  “If she’d hit this tank, you could have all been boiled alive.”

  “Maybe,” Monty said. “And maybe not. I think the combination of our magic might have been able to hold off a second wave of heat—especially given her destruction of the house would have left her pretty close to empty energy wise.”

  “Which means she’ll be on the hunt again,” Aiden said. “And that means you need to get us out of the tank.”

  “Working on it, Ranger.” Belle stopped next to the barrel and handed me up the pry bar. “I’ll see if I can break the fuse line. You tackle it from the above.”

  I nodded. “Guys, you might want to swim away from the opening, just in case the bar goes through the metal and hits someone on the head.”

  There was a snort of amusement—Ashworth, I suspected—and then the sound of splashing as they swam away.

  Belle began bashing the underneath section of the metal sheet. As dust and soot danced along its length, I shoved the curved end of the bar under the side edge and, once it seemed fairly secure, pulled back in an effort to leverage one sheet from the other.

  It took a fair bit of time and cursing from the two of us, but we eventually managed to break the bond between the sheet of tin and the tank. Belle jumped up onto the roof of the tank and, together, we grabbed the edge of the sheet and peeled it back to fully reveal the opening. Aiden hauled himself up onto the roof, water sluicing off his body as he turned to help the others. Ashworth was the last one out, and his cast was, rather remarkably, dry.

  He must have seen my surprise, because he gave me a look and said, “I have no intention of going back into the hospital, lass, so you can bet I made damn sure not to get the thing wet.”

  “I would have thought it’d be the last thing on your min
d given the situation and the urgency,” Belle said.

  “When you’ve confronted as many evils as I have, you learn to keep your head and never let utter panic take control.” Though he didn’t look at Monty, I rather suspected the comment was aimed that way. “Now what? Do we attempt to find her again tonight?”

  “We’ve no other choice,” Monty said. “We can’t afford the older one to find another victim and become strong again.”

  Aiden jumped off the tank, then turned and helped Belle, and then me, down. “I’ll need to call in someone to deal with this mess—”

  “You’d better call in a tow truck, too.” I handed him his phone. “Ashworth’s truck is on its side.”

  “What?” Ashworth said. “If that bitch’s actions have written her off, I’ll be royally pissed.”

  He was a man who loved his truck, obviously. “Relax, she looks fine.”

  He grunted and carefully climbed down from the tank. Eli was the last one down.

  “That leaves us with Aiden’s truck as transport, and it only seats five,” he said.

  “Six,” Aiden said, “If you count the small holding area in the back.”

  “Which I’ll preemptively assign to Monty,” Ashworth said. “Eli and I are too old.”

  Monty snorted. “I like how your age very conveniently comes into it in a situation like this, but not others.”

  Ashworth’s grin flashed. “You’re just annoyed that you didn’t get in first.”

  “Actually no, because you’re forgetting one point—I’m the only one who can trace the first soucouyant using the second, and I need to be able to communicate directions.”

  “Oh for God’s sake, I’ll get in the back,” I said. “I’m the shortest anyway, so it makes sense. Can we just get moving?”

  I didn’t wait for an answer. I just turned and headed back to the truck.

  “I guess hiding the younger soucouyant was a bit of a waste of time,” Monty said as he caught up with me.

  “Not necessarily.” I waved a hand at the house. “I suspect you four would have ended up looking like that if you’d had her with you.”