She disappeared into the storm-clad darkness. I swung out onto the driveway and raced after her. She was now on the far side of the road, heading toward a construction site consisting of half-built two-story apartment houses.
I raced after her, splashing through the puddles and sending muddy water flying. As I crossed the road, lights swept around the long corner to my left, pinning me in sudden brightness.
A car, coming straight at me.
Chapter Seven
Panic surged, lending my feet wings as I raced for the safety of the road’s edge. The twin beam of lights shifted abruptly, and I looked up. The car had slewed sideways and was now beginning a slow spin. The driver’s face was a white blur, but I nevertheless recognized it.
Monty.
Fighting for control.
Failing.
He was going to hit me …
I swore and leapt high in a desperate attempt to vault the oncoming car’s nose. The jump was higher and longer than anything I’d ever done before, and was no doubt fueled not only by fear but also the changes the inner wild magic continued to make on my body. As I reached the arc of the leap and began to drop toward the ground, the car slid underneath me and continued to spin down the road. Relief surged, but it was short-lived; I landed hard and awkwardly, stumbling forward several steps before crashing onto my hands and knees.
That’s when I felt it—a sphere of darkness, heading straight at me. I flung up a hand and quickly raised a shielding spell. It flared through the rain-swept night, a thick round net that not only caught the sphere, but also sent it flying back.
A scream that was fury and surprise combined rent the air, then the force of her presence moved away once more.
I swore and scrambled upright. Heard a shout and looked around to see Monty running toward me. His car sat half on, half off the road several houses down, the engine off but headlights on, shining brightness into the front windows of the nearby house.
“You okay?” His face was ghost white. “I could have fucking—”
“Monty,” I cut in fiercely, “she’s close. Did you get the tracker going?”
He nodded and pulled out what looked to be a baseball-sized mass of inert threads. He made a motion with his hand, quickly activating the spell, and then tossed it into the air. It hovered for an instant, slowly turning around, and then shot forward. A tiny thread no thicker than fine cotton unspooled behind it, a shimmering guide for us to follow.
We ran into the construction site. The rain was now so fierce, rivers of water sluiced down the driveway, making the already muddy ground unstable, forcing us to slow down or end up facedown in the muck.
We slogged up the hill, past five of the half-built apartments and then around to the left, toward the small Portaloo and site office. The trail led us over to the fence that divided the construction site from the house behind it. Monty leapt up, swung one leg over the fence, then yelped and threw himself back, landing awkwardly.
I grabbed his arm, steadying him. “Why the hell—”
I stopped. Deep, fierce growls now filled the night, and the fence shuddered under a barrage of weighty assaults. “Is that dog as large as it sounds?”
“Larger.” Monty pulled away from my grip and gave me a nod of thanks. “We’ll have to try the next house and hope there’s not another psycho dog in that one.”
I nodded and took the lead, warily leaping onto the fence that led into the neighboring yard, then whistling softly. Psycho dog immediately shifted position and tried to get through the fence between his property and this one, but no other dog responded.
Of course, he or she could just be lying in wait.
I wove a gentle repelling spell around my fingers, just in case, then threw a leg over the fence and leapt down.
Still nothing other than psycho dog.
Monty jumped down beside me, hissing slightly. “Hurt my ankle, it seems.”
“Bad?”
“Nope. This way.”
He moved forward. Though I suspected he was trying not to limp, his pain was obvious.
We moved around the side of the house, through a gate, and then up the drive. The tracker thread pulsed briefly, as if in response to Monty’s reappearance.
As he hurried on after it, I said, “Has the tracker got a distance limit?”
“It’ll spool out for about a kilometer,” Monty said. “It’ll stop after that and wait for me to catch up or recall it.”
“And it’s currently still spooling?”
He nodded and glanced around at me. “If you’re about to suggest you run on without me, forget it. I’d rather lose the bitch than you.”
“Well, obviously, but—”
I stopped abruptly. Darkness crawled my skin, and the night came alive.
It wasn’t the weather. It was magic. Dark magic, coming straight at us.
This time, there was no time to shield. It was too fast, too close. I leapt at Monty, knocking him sideways and down. We hit the ground in a tangled mess of arms and legs, him on the bottom, me half on top. As he cursed and struggled to get back up, I growled, “Stay down.”
He instantly stilled. I punched upwards with a clenched fist and called to the wild magic. So many strands responded, it briefly appeared as if the moon itself flew toward us. The thick ball gathered around my fist and then fell curtain-like across the two of us, covering us in a sheet of luminous power.
And not a moment too soon.
The sphere of dark magic hit the curtain and then spread out like a disease, covering the glowing threads with darkness. The force of the blow ricocheted through my body, and my arm briefly buckled, dragging the shield and the magic it was struggling to contain so close to my face that I could smell its foulness and taste the bitter rot of its creator.
And yet the sphere hadn’t been designed to kill. It had been designed to stop.
More luminous threads of wild magic spun into the curtain, strengthening it, bolstering it. Bolstering me. I straightened my arm and forced the foul magic away from my face.
Then Monty’s magic surged, attacking the dark spell, unravelling its threads and muting its force. Within seconds, there was nothing left but a few broken threads that the wild magic burned away.
I sucked in a deep breath and released the protective curtain. The luminous threads of wild magic disentangled themselves and moved away, undeterred and unaffected by the fierceness of the storm. I couldn’t help but wish I was similarly unaffected, because right now, it felt like every bit of me was wet, cold, and aching.
I rolled away from Monty and sat up, my gaze sweeping the night, looking for the tracker’s cotton-fine guide thread.
It was no longer visible.
Monty pushed into a sitting position with a deep groan. “Thank you for the save, but fuck, can you give me a little warning next time?”
“If evil ever bothers to give me a warning, next time I will.”
I pushed upright, then winced as pain shot through my head. It felt as if there were dozens of tiny people inside my head gleefully shoving red-hot needles into my brain. I blinked back tears, offered Monty a hand, and quickly hauled him upright.
He swore, his face screwing up in pain. “Damn it, I really did damage my ankle when I fell off that fence.”
“The ankle will heal. What about the tracker spell?”
“I do love all the cousinly concern you’re showing.” His gaze narrowed as he scanned the night. After a few seconds, he grimaced. “It lost momentum when we were attacked. It’s hovering just beyond the kilometer limit.”