Brave the Tempest (Cassandra Palmer 9)

And was cut off when I shifted us, trying to get out of the way of the latest impossible thing to threaten our lives. But it was coming too fast and I was still dizzy, and then it didn’t matter anyway. Because we were standing in the aisle of an old-­fashioned steam train.

That’s what I’d seen screaming toward us through the skies, as crazy as that sounds, and I guess I hadn’t been hallucinating. Or, if I was, my brain was still working overtime, showing me a crowd in Gibson Girl outfits with high collars and long skirts, or three-­piece suits with top hats and pipes. The latter of which were falling out of mouths that had opened in shock, because it didn’t look like they understood what the hell had just happened, either.

Neither did I; I just knew we were about to—­

“Augghhhhhhhh!” The entire car screamed as one when the train hit the ground and plowed through a couple hundred feet of snow, and then kept on going. Because we weren’t on a level; we were on a small, tip-­tilted plateau at the top of a mountain that dwarfed most on earth, and now we were—­

“Shiiiiiiiiiiiit!” I screamed, and grabbed Pritkin.

I had a split second to see the world tilt, to see the sky skew around us, to see the ridiculously steep and rocky slope going down, down, down slide by outside a window—­

And then we were falling. Or, to be more precise, we were rolling, because antique steam trains are not designed to ski down Everest! The train car started rotating, and people started tumbling—­like the guy with a copy of the morning Times still firmly wedged under his arm and a pair of small spectacles perched on his nose, who flattened me to the floor.

He didn’t stay there long, because we were rolling constantly now as the train really got into it, throwing people around, breaking windows, and slamming me in the face with someone’s boot and someone else’s umbrella.

Which is why I didn’t understand it when our ride suddenly smoothed out.

I fought my way free of some petticoats, shoved aside somebody’s little yappy dog, and looked up to find Pritkin standing over me. His arms were outstretched, his face was agonized, and despite the weather, he was sweating bullets. Which made no sense, because he wasn’t ­doing anything.

Except for that, I thought, as I stumbled to my feet. And looked out a window. And saw us, the whole long train of us, skiing down Everest.

I scrambled closer to get a better view, crawling over people who didn’t object, because they were staring at the same thing. It took me a second to figure out what was going on, because of all the snow and icy bits being flung up at the broken windows, hitting me in the face. But after a moment, I caught a glimpse of something familiar—­namely the distinctive blue of Pritkin’s shields.

They were underneath us, forming a pad that I guess was taking the brunt of the beating and banging of who knew how many tons of iron slamming its way down a mountain. The result was a magical shock absorber for us, and a stroke for him, because he clearly wasn’t going to be doing this much longer. I didn’t know how he was doing it now, or how Jo had grabbed a train out of time and flung it through the air at us, which was way above her pay grade—­hell, it was above mine—­or how this was happening in Faerie, where our power wasn’t even supposed to work!

And then it got worse.

“What is that?” a woman beside me screamed, clutching a crying baby. And staring out of the window at the geode-­headed manlikan, which was matching our pace down the mountain and now carrying two riders.

And a couple of rocks.

Only no, not rocks. They were boulders the size of large buildings, which came crashing toward us a second later, because I guess we weren’t dying fast enough. One hit something that caused it to bounce over top of us, but the other—­

Slammed into a bolt of power that Pritkin threw out the window, shattering it into a million pieces that peppered the train like bullets, startling the stunned crowd and starting the screaming again.

Or maybe that was the rolling, which had also started up again, because Pritkin’s shields had just cut out.

I grabbed him as we went over. “Handle the train!” I yelled. “I’ll handle them!”

Only it didn’t look like he’d heard me.

He was clutching me to his chest, trying to shield me, when I needed him to be shielding the train, goddamn it!

Then we hit a patch of ice and momentarily stopped rolling, and started sliding out of control. As the train slung around, I recognized the second rider as Jo, her dark hair flying, her hand clutching a fey spear that I assumed was meant for me. Because no way was she letting me walk away from this.

We had far too much history for that.

I shoved my hand into a pocket of my shirt, pulled out a little bottle, and flicked off the cork with a thumb. The contents smelled rancid enough that they caused a nearby man to rear back in alarm, in spite of everything. But to me, they were sweet as candy.

Okay, bitch, I thought. Want to play? Let’s fucking play.

And I belted back a whole bottle of the Tears of Apollo.

It hit like a train wreck itself, watering my eyes and etching my throat like acid all the way down. I barely noticed. Because right on the heels of the pain was power, a sudden, eye-­opening, vein-­expanding, world-­altering rush of it, tingling out from my core to my fingertips, and just in time.

Because the manlikan had found another rock, and this one was the biggest yet, looking like a small mountain itself. Pritkin’s lips had been working as he muttered a spell, probably trying to get the pad back, but at that he cut off. And prepared to launch another bolt, which probably wouldn’t work because of the rock’s size, and wasn’t needed anyway!

“No!” I shook him. “You handle the train! I’ll take them!”