Roadside Magic Read Online Free Page B

and now she flicked them all, fanwise and deadly, a baking draft scouring her from top to toe and her eyes slitted against the blast. Smoke billowed; it would make the air unbreathable after a few more moments. The back door was behind her; she fumbled with her left hand for the knob, her right hand sweeping in a semicircle, scattering salt in an arc that would not halt Unwinter’s minion.
    But it would delay him, and salt could be fashioned into other things. There was the song, too, her loosening throat scorched with smoke-tang, and just as the drow with the net shook himself free of the ruins of the coat closet and the trollheaved again, the knob turned under her fingers and she half-fell backward, saving herself with a wrenching fishlike jump as the wet wooden steps outside splintered.
    The troll heaved yet again, dragging his leash-holder with him, breaking through the remainder of the wall and, instead of backing away from the inferno, plunged forward, crashing entirely through the other side of the trailer. The noise was incredible, mortals would soon take notice, her heels clattered on a narrow strip of damp pavement. The mortal whose home they had just destroyed had a charcoal grill set here, all rust carefully scrubbed from its legs and black bowl. It went flying as Robin’s hip bumped it, clattering and striking gonglike as it rolled.
    Did I strike him, please tell me I did—
    The net-bearing drow bulleted out of the burning trailer. The wight’s scream and flapping curse had vanished into a snap and crackle of flame, a burst of hot air lifting smoke and sparks heavenward as the fire could now suck on the night air outside the shattered home, window-glass shivered into breaking. Robin kept backing up over the small concrete patio, light, shuffling skips, and the urge to cough tickled mercilessly at the back of her palate. She denied it, saw she had, indeed, managed to hit the net-bearer. Thick yellowgreenish ichor threaded with crimson stained his side, his face was a ruin of scratches and soot, his hair full of burning sparks, and one of his feet was tangled with a mass of glittering spikes, fading quickly as they burrowed through his boots, seeking the flesh underneath.
    The song burst free of Robin’s throat, a low, throbbing orchestral noise. It smashed into the net-bearer head-on, and he flew backward into the fire, which took another deep breath, finding fresh fuel, and grunted a mass of sparks and blackening smoke skyward. A wet, heavy breeze full of spring-smell andthe good greenness of more rain approaching whisked it into a curtain of burning.
    Robin halted, her sides heaving. The stonetroll, truly maddened now, dragged the other drow away into the damp night, its grinding shrieks interspersed with the dark sidhe’s screams. It would not be calmed until it had exhausted itself.
    She struggled to control her breathing, staring at the flames.
The cat. Stone and Throne, the cat. Is she still inside?
    Sirens in the distance. Some mortal had noticed this, and Robin did not wish to be here when they swarmed. Still, she darted along the back of the house, searching for any unburnt portion.
I am sorry. I am so sorry. I did not mean for this to happen.
    What else had she expected? She was a Half, mortal and sidhe in equal measure, a faithless sidhe bitch possibly sired by a monstrous ancient, the cause of more trouble and sorrow than any mortal could ever hope to be.
    There was no sign of the cat, and Robin, smoke-tarnished, fled before anyone else arrived.

A GODDAMN GOOD BIT OF LUCK
6

    E ddie Sharnahan returned that morning from his niece’s wedding to find his trailer gone, but that was all right because he had insurance and Juniper, her black-and-white fur reeking of smoke, was unharmed. He held her in the soft morning drizzle while he surveyed the smoking ruins, and none of the emergency personnel noticed that the cat’s frenzied rubbing against her master’s face lent a faint dusty glitter to him.