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?”