Spring Rain by Lizzy Ford Page A

out to see the crowd gathering in the parking lot
while someone else ran door to door alerting the occupants and
ordering people to wake up. Sirens wailed in the distance.
    She closed her door and locked it, sensing
there was no better time to make an exit than now. She released
fire magick to find out where the fire originated and which
direction it was headed.
    With a frown, Morgan sensed the fire magick
of another witchling present. She let her magick follow the traces
of power through the building. The fire originated outside but had
spread quickly to the roof. The apartment building was burning from
the roof to the ground.
    Dawn had a fire witchling for one of her
lackeys. Troy. Morgan recalled her last interaction with both and
shuddered. Like most fire witchlings, Troy was Dark, and a faint
thread of Darkness was interwoven into the flames tackling her
apartment building.
    The fire wasn’t accidental but a sign she’d
been found. Morgan tossed the bat onto the couch and started away
from the door. Movement from the corner of her eye made her whirl,
and fire flared to life in her hands again, illuminating her
surroundings.
    The only lackey of Dawn’s capable of
canceling out her fire magick was in her home. Morgan hesitated
then bolted towards her bedroom.
    Troy tackled her and slammed her into the
wall between the kitchen and bedroom. Morgan gasped, and fire spun
off both, sparking and igniting the kitchen cupboards. Troy
couldn’t burn her, but he could disable her magic and turn this
into a purely physical battle.
    She sucked in a breath and shoved away from
the wall, twisted and socked him as hard as she could. Troy
staggered back with a curse, and Morgan darted into her room. She
slammed the door behind her, aware it wasn’t going to impede a fire
witchling for long, and snatched the soul stone from its hiding
spot beneath her pillow.
    The door exploded, and she winced as
splinters of wood scraped her face and arms. Before Troy could get
her again, she had ducked into the tiny bathroom and slammed the
door closed.
    Smoke poured in through the vents, and she
locked the door, breathing hard and scared. The soul stone was so
small to be of such interest to the world, and she gazed at it
briefly. In a matter of moments, Troy would knock down the door and
attack her again.
    She had a secondary bat under the sink and
opened the cupboard to yank it free. The sound of dripping water
drew her attention to the faucet in the bathtub, and she rose.
Drips turned to a stream then to a torrent. The bathroom sink began
to fill as well.
    The best way to deal with a fire witchling:
suffocate her, which Dawn had already tried and failed. Second
best: drown her.
    Starting to panic, Morgan gripped the bat
tightly, her fire magick warning her there were at least three
people waiting for her outside the door. Another of Dawn’s henchmen
had been a water witchling, like Noah, but without Noah’s
conscience.
    Water soon filled the bathroom to her
calves, her knees, her thighs. She tested the doorknob and wasn’t
surprised to find the door sealed, probably by an air witchling,
and impossible to open.
    Morgan dropped the bat, coughing in the
smoke and terrified of the rising water. With another look at the
soul stone, she popped it in her mouth and swallowed it, washing it
down with the water whose level was at her waist.
    The stone was cold enough to burn as it
traveled to her stomach, and she turned her flames inward to keep
it from killing her. Climbing on top of the toilet seat, she wildly
sought another avenue of escape.
    There was none. Just water. Hot tears burned
her cheeks, and she stepped precariously onto the slippery sink to
press her face to the ceiling.
    Why is it always
water? She’d barely survived the lake
incident in December, and this time, there was no Noah to help her
live through this one.
    Morgan clawed at the vent cover high in one
wall and pulled it free, hoping to provide an outlet for the water.
Instead,