More fire. More sparks. Evan was putting his all into it.
The three demons were emerging, rising from diagrams as if lifted by a platform from below.
“Wait,” the Elder Sister repeated herself.
“I’m ready,” Emily said.
“Wait,” the Elder Sister said, again, tense.
Evan completed another loop. Flames splashed onto the road.
The Elder Sister gestured, her ring flaring.
As if they’d been pushed by a great force, the flames parted, the bulk of them slamming up against the barrier the lawyer had erected.
“Go!” Rose and the Elder Sister said, at the same time.
Paige stumbled as she started running, wobbly with the Drunk’s inebriating blessing flowing through her veins. Peter and Ainsley caught her, held her firm until she had her balance.
As a group, the seven of them ran along the path that had been cleared, framed by fire on both sides.
Rose could see Mags’ face. Troubled, as she looked around her.
Was it because the flames were starting to close in again? The fires grew, feeding on nothing, and the path in front and behind became narrower.
Rose wracked her brain for runes she could put down to buy them time, to stop the flame or move them faster.
“The fires-” she started.
“Leave them,” Paige said.
“The power of tradition!” Peter said. “Burn the witch! And the handsome non-witch bystander!”
“Leave the fires alone,” Paige said, her voice low. “And shut up, do you want them to hear us?”
Rose could feel the heat of the flames as they closed in. There was scarcely a foot of ground between the two great swathes of burning ground, now. Her skin prickled and the air was getting too hot to breathe.
A few running steps later, she was running on patches of flame, and wondering if perhaps her hair or the soles of her shoes could ignite.
They were painfully close to the lawyers now.
Leaving everyone else behind, to try and form battle lines and defensive measures before they had to deal with five proper demons. The howler, the demon of the choir of darkness that had been in the fire, and the three new arrivals.
She picked up the pace, pressed on despite the intense heat.
All she could do was run harder and run faster, trying to resolve the situation as soon as possible.
The fire closed in, and it made contact.
It wasn’t any hotter than before.
They were immersed in fire, consumed by it, but they were left untouched, unburnt.
Surrounded by darkness, hidden by the illusion of bright flame, they forged onward. Past the lawyers, rounding a corner, leaving the flames behind.
North.
To the Barber’s demesne.
16.06
Evan landed off to one side with a muffled thud, snow rising and steaming around his talons.
“You didn’t set the town on fire, did you?” Peter asked.
“Nope,” Evan said, in his deeper voice. He fluttered a bit to get to a point where he could walk by the side of the road, without being up to his stomach in deeper snow. He was the size of a small horse, and continued to leave a trail of fire behind him. “Flew around to lose them, but I flew over backyards and roads.”
“Good,” Rose said. Her eyes were on the North end, several blocks away. The morning light was more visible there, but it was more ominous than reassuring. The light itself was dark, and the clouds thick enough to be almost pitch black. It reminded her of magma.
The highway cut through the older area of Jacob’s Bell and Johannes’ demesne. The periodic car zipped by, while trucks were more frequent, passing with a touch more noise, a glow of headlights and red taillights cutting through the haze.
Each person that passed was utterly oblivious to what was really happening in the town itself.
Rose looked back, toward the others. Smoke mingled with the faint haze of morning mist, but the flames were visible, all the same.
She could only hope that the charms and enchantments that kept all this on the down-low would hold and keep bystanders out of this.
The same made it hard to impossible for those passing by to see the fine gaps and cracks that ran through everything. An eighth of an inch at most, where the west and south facing walls of a building were supposed to meet, or where the sidewalk met the snow that layered the street.
“Sorry about your pussy,” Peter said, to his twin.
“Don’t,” Paige said, her voice sharp.
“God,” Ainsley said, moving to Paige’s side, shooting Peter a look. “Learn when to stop. I know we’re feeling woozy, and we were already tired, before that, but… what she said. Don’t.”
“Welcome to what I grew up with,” Paige said. “He sees weakness and he’s on it like a starved dog on a haunch of meat.”
“No, that’s-” Peter started, bristling. He stopped and composed himself. “No. I do mean it. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to call her. Really.”
“Isadora,” Paige said.
“Isadora,” Peter said. “Okay. I’m sorry about what happened to her.”