Page 50 of Claiming Chaos

I settled next to Chaos, and he took my hand, lacing our fingers together and giving me a squeeze. Ember started the engine and drove toward the church, where we’d either defeat the enemy and claim the demon or we’d die trying. Some of us might either way.

“Whatever happens, whatever she promises, don’t trust her.” I patted Chaos’s leg. “I mean it. Even if she’s got me strung up by the ankles over a pit of vipers, do not believe she’ll let me go if you comply.”

His jaw tightened, and he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.

Patrice turned around in her seat. “That sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

“We’re both lucky to still be in this realm,” I said. “When this is over, I’ll tell you about it.”

Ember’s eyes narrowed in the rearview mirror, and she hung a right where she should have gone left. She glared even harder and hung another right before slamming on the brakes. The tires squealed, the van skidding to a stop in the middle of the road. “We’re being followed. Arm yourselves.”

She hit the gas, and we all turned around to see a dark brown delivery truck on our tail. “Now, Ash,” she shouted.

“Move your feet.” I reached down to open the floor compartment and passed out the weapons. Chaos held Ember’s sword in his lap, and Miles and Shade strapped on even more knives than they already wore. I attached a dagger to each thigh and offered a sheathed hunting knife to Patrice.

She held up her hands, refusing it. “I don’t think I could use that. I’ll stick with spells.”

“Take it,” Ember said. “You might need to cut through some roots.”

“Okay.” She accepted the knife and strapped it to her right thigh.

Still flooring it, Ember ran through a stop sign and swerved around an old woman driving at granny speed. The woman, with silver hair and decades of wrinkles, gave us the bird, and, if my lip-reading skills were any good, she shouted a string of profanities as we whizzed by.

Our pursuers swerved around her as well, the top-heavy truck lifting onto two wheels for a second before it gently, unnaturally, returned upright. Fabulous. We had a telekinetic on our tails.

I turned to tell Ember what we were dealing with, but the words didn’t have time to cross my lips before our wheels locked up and we skidded across the road. Ember hit the gas, revving the engine, and smoke billowed from the back axle.

“They’ve got a telekinetic.” I opened my satchel and grabbed an undoing potion. I could usually break simple hexes without one, but this magic felt way too strong for just words. “I’ll try to counter the spell.”

After uncorking the same potion I’d used to unbind my fire magic, I dumped the contents onto the floorboard. “Undo, unbind the magic I find. Set us free. So mote it be.”

Ember slammed on the gas again, and our tires screeched on the pavement before lurching us forward once more. We peeled through an intersection as the light turned from yellow to red.

Horns blared behind us, followed by the sounds of metal crunching and glass shattering. I peered through the back window to see the delivery truck on its side in the crossroads and a blue Mazda smashed to bits.

“Please, goddess, don’t let anyone die.” We’d left enough carnage in our wake as it was.

“Did anyone get a look at the driver? Was it Chrys?” Ember flicked her gaze to the mirror.

“There was a glare on the glass,” Miles said. “But I don’t think it was her. She’s not telekinetic, as far as I know.”

“It had to be Boston witches,” Shade said. “Either she’s working for them or they’re working for her.”

“And they’re trying to keep us away from the church,” I said. “She’s about to summon Mayhem.”

“Then we better stop her.” Ember hung a left, finally heading in the direction of our destination, and parked six blocks away. “We’ll walk from here. Cloak us, Shade.”

“On it.” He held his palms toward each other, gathering gray fog between his hands before sending it outward to engulf us, desaturating the world around us.

“Do you want me to cast a silencing spell too?” I asked my sister.

Shade answered, “I can cloak sound too. I was saving my vim, but if you think we need it, I can.”

I squelched the laugh that tried to bubble from my chest. He might have apologized, but that ego of his wasn’t going anywhere, was it?

“I don’t think we need it yet.” Ember slid out of the van and closed the door.

The rest of us filed out onto the sidewalk, and we hoofed it across the street, practically running the first three blocks toward the church. When we reached the fourth block, we really ran.

---