Get up… Get up, or this demon is going to kill you.
I groaned, forcing myself up onto my elbows. Pain shot down my side and awakened in my muscles, the bruises that marked me. The incendiary sauntered forward, their face still shrouded in secret. Their hair, though. There was too much of it to belong to the arsonist. They tossed another handful of fire from one ghostly palm to the other, the movement hypnotic, releasing blue embers into the night sky.
I finally scraped myself off the street and ran. The incendiary had plenty of time to kill me, twice over. Why didn’t they? Maybe the thrill of hunting me for sport was enough.
The narrow road branched off from where I’d left the car smoldering, another confusing grid of abandoned lots and empty cars hidden behind rows of storefronts. A blast of sulfuric, hot air shoved into the small of my back. I ducked with a yelp, a second car to my left going up in a burst of Hellfire.
If this incendiary got off on damaging property rather than murder, then maybe I’d live long enough to keep them preoccupied.
When the third car went up in flames on my right, pieces of broken glass flying into my cheek and shoulder, the flare was so intense that the fire spread rapidly. It leapt from the hood to the back end of the car parallel parked in front of it, roaring as it twisted the metal with its scorching heat. If it kept going, these people would wake up tomorrow to find the whole street lined with burned-out cars.
If only I could put it out.
The demon hadn’t hit me. Not yet.
I twisted around, an awkward motion that nearly made me fall right out of my flip flops. The incendiary moved toward me with an unsettling, deliberate gait. I held my hands in front of me, pushing my palms outward, hoping to find that same fire again. It was there. I knew it was. Why couldn’t I reach it?
I shut my eyes and listened to the frantic pulse running around my ears. And inhaled, slowly, despite the danger advancing.
Heat touched my bare skin, scorching as it rushed past. Not close enough to graze or burn. But I saw the burst of orange light across my closed eyelids, heard the whoosh of flame inches from my ear and felt the prickle of heat.
It didn’t belong to me. Or the demon.
Someone’s hand latched onto my wrist and I flinched. Their touch was blazing—I sensed the influx of pyromancy this time, their skin hot from the fire—but the grip on my wrist wasn’t rough. More than anything, it was urgent.
“I admire your effort,” a deep, masculine voice said from behind me, “but we’ve gotta hustle. I just pissed ‘em off.”