Sometimes I stole out to the woods and tried my hand at it, but my heart wasn’t in it. Maybe too much sorrow weighed the spirit down, unbalancing the chakras or preventing me from tapping my potential. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t make magick like she did. I just had the one soul-sucking trick.
Chance and I had faced off against a few bad apples in our time, practitioners used to getting their own way and not caring how they went about it. We survived a particularly nasty cockroach sending in Reno. Hope to God it’s not insects.
It wasn’t.
When we broke away from the crates and headed toward the door, it zeroed in on us: a wailing presence made of violent wind, dust, and dry leaves that had blown in through the broken windows. Like a sand-storm, the sending stung my skin, determined to force its way into my nose and throat. I’d once seen the remains of someone who choked to death in one of these, and it wasn’t pretty.
That was one of the cases Chance and I took pro bono. When a woman came to us and said, eyes downcast, “Somebody’s killing people on my block, and the police don’t care,” I just couldn’t refuse. One of those rogue practitioners had turned the projects into his personal hunting ground, testing new spells without giving a shit who got in the way.
I tracked him. Found him. Chance left him chained to a guardrail on an overpass, wrapped up with a bow for the cops to find. Oddly, law enforcement didn’t appear thankful. They called us vigilantes.
We had been, among other things, once upon a time. But I was out of practice.
I don’t want to go out like this.
My hair whipped around my face as the called storm fought to push into my nose and mouth. I should’ve put it up, braided it or something—long hair was a weakness out in the field. I saw sparks from holding my breath, but inhaling would be worse.
The winds buffeted, and I fought to keep my feet, but the gale sent me sailing. As my hand tore from his, Chance shouted, “Corine!” though it was madness to speak.
I landed hard, slamming into first a crate and then the wall. Dazed, I lay while the wind howled around me, more dust rising in a malignant manifestation of the summoner’s will. The leaves scraping my skin felt as though they were made of salt and ground glass, so I covered my face with my hands.
How do you fight a force of nature? If I stayed low it’d burn itself out, if I didn’t choke to death first. No practitioner possessed the power to rage like this indefinitely.
His head down, Chance came to me, crawling. Once I would have given anything to see him like this, but it lacked poetry now. I registered a surge of joy that he’d come for me. His fingers wrapped around mine.
“I thought I told you not to let go,” he yelled.
I almost laughed. He held on to me as we forced our way through, blind but determined. It became almost impossible to breathe, and I started to feel faint, afraid to inhale, afraid the demon dust would find purchase in my lungs and strangle me from the inside out. Worse—it might take root, giving the summoner a hold over me.
By the time we staggered outside, our clothes hanging in tatters, I heard sirens in the distance. Leaning down, hands on my knees, I took deep, gulping breaths, willing the black dots to leave my field of vision. We had to get out of here. It wouldn’t go well if they took us in officially. I had a history of being near crime scenes, though it was hard to tell what local law enforcement would make of all the windows being broken.
“Can you travel?” When he turned without waiting for my reply, I saw that his back was a nightmare of ruined flesh. If he didn’t receive immediate medical attention, it would scar. Hell, it might scar anyway.
“Yeah,” I told his bloody back, and limped after him.
A guy in a black hooded sweatshirt slid out from between two buildings. I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye and increased my pace to a quick trot. Most likely he was just a vagrant who slept in a box out back, but I didn’t take any chances. If the cops questioned him, he might be able to finger us. We needed to get gone.
Because fate isn’t always a capricious bitch, the Toyota started on the first try. As we left the La Quinta parking lot, I saw the glimmered reflection of red and blue lights in the rearview mirror. They’d have a hell of a mess to clean up.
I couldn’t think about the way Chance had put my safety first back there, how he’d thrown himself on top of me to shield me from flying glass. It controverted everything I knew—or thought I knew—about him. I certainly couldn’t think about the way he’d crawled through demon dust and howling winds for me.
Luckily, something else occurred to me. “Where was the night watchman?”
He cut me a grim look, taking his eyes off the road for only a second. “I hope he’s home watching TV. Nothing got out of that place alive, except us.”
I hoped he was right. It wouldn’t do any good to worry, though. “Where we going?”
“I know a safe house.” His voice bordered on curt because the pain had to be staggering. He’d taken the brunt of the glass, maybe had slivers embedded in his skin too. I noticed how stiff he sat as he drove, and my conscience cringed.
Chance made a quick call on his cell, but I couldn’t tell whom he was talking to. If the plan involved Tanya, I’d seriously think about going home, even if it meant abandoning Min to whatever fate had befallen her and breaking my word. Forfeiting my shot at IDing the bastards who had led long, happy lives after murdering my mother.
So maybe not. I’d stick.