The guard took one look at my outstretched hand and bolted. I walked serenely out the door into the hall, an expression of peace on my face. Inside, I was screaming, terrified they’d invoke some spell to contain me and end up separating me from my only source of comfort.
Looking both ways, I wasn’t sure where to go. There was a door at each end and nothing else.I gotta get out of here.I looked behind me, where Axoular stood, not on fire, holding the covers from the bed. I saw my clothes smoldering on the floor behind him and flames licking the door frame as they spread from the wallpaper. The room would be ash, but the hall was all stone and would not burn. He pointed to the right with a shrug, so I went that way, walking quickly, but not running. I wouldn’t let them see any fear.
“Hurry,” he said. “You’re going to burn out soon and collapse.”
Crap.He was right. I’d start burning calories at a frightening rate and probably pass out, then it'd be on him to continue our escape with me in his arms.
I ran. Throwing open the door at the end of the hall, I found a set of stairs. Heading down, I wondered why I hadn’t found any more people or resistance. And where the hell did Dumadi go?
The door at the bottom opened and three enormous men ran up the stairs toward me. The lead man yelled at us. “Stop right there!”
I stopped, all right. Stopped and put energy into making my body overwhelmingly hot. They couldn’t get near me without the skin melting off of their bodies.
Halfway between us and the door, they stopped, and goon number one took a pouch out of his pocket. “Don’t let him throw that at you!” Axoular yelled from behind me. I didn’t even look back, I just threw fire down on the men, ignoring the panicked feeling I got for causing death. The third man dodged it and retreated to the bottom, but the first two weren’t so lucky. Their clothes caught and they writhed on the stairs, dying.
“We don’t have time for this,” Axoular said. He couldn’t touch me, or he’d risk catching his clothes and the blanket he’d grabbed for me on fire. “Go!”
I went. Goon number three at the bottom of the stairs pulled another pouch out and pitched it toward me. I brought my hand up and shot the hottest fire I could manage at it in the air. It obliterated it.
The ashes of the bag drifted down and goon Three hightailed it.
At the bottom of the stairs, I flew through the door into what appeared to be a room of worship. Dumadi ran through the door on the other side of the room. I tore through, touching my flaming hands to everything I passed. I hated lighting a sacred place on fire, but I needed any distraction I could get.
The door Dumadi exited through stood open and I saw that it went outside. I skidded to a stop when I realized people milled everywhere outside the temple. People meant safety. If we could get lost in the crowd, we could escape. I pulled my fire back inside me and threw myself to the side of the doorway to put the blanket around my body like a toga. I’d just gotten it tied when I felt the crash coming.
“Axoular! I’m about to drop. Borrow someone’s phone and call them.” I fought it for another second, but the exhaustion took me. It was up to Axoular to complete our escape.
CHAPTER SIX
ANTHONY
“I’ve got her!” Cindy’s voice rang out, excited, as my phone rang.
The number was unfamiliar, but it was a local number. Combined with Cindy’s excited shriek, I was sure it was Riley. “Hello? Riley?”
“It’s me.” Axoular’s voice sent waves of relief coursing through me.
Elias pushed against me. “Is it her? Is she okay?”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and pushed the speaker button.
“She’s safe for now.” Axoular’s voice was muffled by background noise. “She passed out, but it’s just exhaustion, and I couldn’t stop the locals from calling an ambulance. It’s on the way. I borrowed someone’s phone.”
“Where are you?” Elias shouted at the cell phone in my hand.
“I don’t know what temple we're at, but we’ve been held in a temple by the Leyak.”
“Are you sure you’re safe?” I asked. “I knew it was those Shapeshifters.”
“Our safety is the crowd. The temple was open for business when we escaped from the inner parts of it. The crowd is human, as far as I can tell, and our safety is being surrounded by them.” He paused, and it sounded like he spoke to someone there at the temple. “The ambulance is pulling up, I must go.”
I got the hospital information from him and hung up the phone. Elias and I stared at each other for a few minutes before rushing into each other’s arms. Tears of relief coursed down my cheeks. I clapped him on the back and turned to find Cindy watching us.
“She’s safe?” she asked.
“We think so. Thank you for your assistance.”
“We didn’t do any good. They’ve got some seriously powerful mojo to block us. I don’t know what magic they’re using, either.”
