That cold finger of unease brushed my spine again. “You think something doesn’t feel right about Molly not coming Ky nght=in to work today and not calling.” I shrugged slightly, lifting one shoulder. “I’m not a friend yet, but I like her. And I feel pretty worried too.”
Regan stood, smoothing her waitress’ apron down her jeans-clad legs. “Tell her to call us, okay?” Her face took on a mock-angry look. “And to not do this to us again.”
I tossed a twenty onto the table. “I’ll be appropriately irritated for you.”
Beast’s claws gripped my mind in a steady pull, keeping me alert as I took the tunnel out of town, making good time to Molly’s. But Beast’s feeling of worry grew on me hard and fast, helped along by the odd dark gray cloud that seemed to hang over the crest of a hill in the general direction where I was headed. I had a feeling that the cloud wasn’t natural. And that it was perched above Mol’s house.
Kit, Beast thought at me. Kit in danger.
The weather had turned chilly and dry early. It was usually still hot and muggy in late September, but an unexpected cool spell had rolled in from the northwest, and though the trees were still dressed in summer green, autumn already had teeth. As I rode, the wind picked up and shoved into me like a warning hand, pushing me back, holding me away as I climbed the hill to Molly’s. And the cloud that had perched serenely on her hill from a distance swirled in angry grays as I got closer, bent over the bike, gunning the motor. Lightning flickered through the cloud, and it looked odd, like black light. No way was it natural. Something magical was going seriously wrong.
The wind had torn down power lines, and they lay drooping in the fields and hanging on tree limbs. Higher up the road, they swirled like snakes on the wind, spitting sparks. Branches flew through the air. Rain pelted in irregular spits, as if the cloud couldn’t quite make up its mind to storm.
When I was still a quarter mile from her house, I stopped the bike to call Seven Sassy Sisters’ for backup, but I had no signal bars. Uncertain, I looked into the sky. I had no business heading into witch problems. I should leave, I thought. But above me the air was heavy and dense with moisture. The cloud thickened and divided and coalesced back into one densely packed dark thunderhead; it sparked with that odd purple-black lightning as energy built inside. The cloud began to roil. It darkened and spread out fingers like claws, as if it drew in energy from the calmer air around it.
Kit, Beast said. Kit now!
But when I turned the key to ride the rest of the way, the bike motor was silent. Dead. And from the hilltop I heard a scream. Tinny and thin with the distance. But a scream. It was Molly.
Kit! Beast screamed. Run!
I dropped the bike and dug in my booted toes, racing uphill. Even in human form I’m faster than a human, thanks to the years I spent in Beast form, and with Beast flooding my system with adrenaline, I reached the yard in less than a minute. Just as the lightning stabbed at the ground. Purple-blue lighting, like nothing out of nature. And the wind swirled into a minitornado, a black funnel spa Kck thrked with blue lights like mutant fireflies caught in a maelstrom.
I almost stopped. I did not want to do this. But Beast reached into me and forced me on, her scream rising into my throat.
The mobile home rocked in the wind on its foundation. Lightning struck, a severe blue flash, throwing me down, sizzling through me. I somersaulted through the air. My heart shuddered with pain as if I’d taken a blade to the chest. I hit the dry ground. What breath I still had in my lungs huffed out. I groaned and rolled to my side, nauseated. Small blue flames licked at the grass. A half-frozen blast of rain hit beside me and put out the fire. Molly screamed again. Big Evan’s voice shouted. They were in trouble. Big trouble. I rolled to my knees and then to my feet and raced to the house.
Blue sparkles and a gray mist flowed down from the cloud. I recognized magic, both icy and scorching, undirected, dangerous. Malevolent. Searching. Almost sentient. Growing more powerful as I raced.
I was almost to the mobile home when the swirling tornado spiraled down, speeding, threatening. And touched down on the mobile home.
The wind ripped at the roof. Tearing. Questing. And it peeled back a corner of the roof. Directly over Angie Baby’s room. Purplish lightning flickered down and struck the damaged home. The boom was deafening. Its flash was blinding. My hair rose, pulling itself from my braid. Sleet slashed at the earth like claws. The wind tried to lift me away, and I hunched low to the ground. The air was so full of magic that I couldn’t take a breath.
Beast screamed. Flooded my body with strength. I leaped to the small porch and tore the door from its hinges. The wind gathered it up and yanked it away into the storm. Overhead the roof rolled back like an old-fashioned tin can. The ceiling went with it. I was inside. But so was the storm.