“Where did you say we are headed?” Harris asked.

  “I didn’t.” I’d spent a lot of time on that road last week, but that didn’t mean much. I pulled up the location on my phone. “Oh, Narzel.”

  “What?”

  “Dispatch neglected to mention that the fire is in the same shopping center where we found CJ.”

  Find was a generous term. We spotted and tried to apprehend him. He literally tore through two SWAT officers to escape. “A magical fire in the same shopping center where the blood magic addled werewolf was hiding. That doesn’t feel like a coincidence.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Harris sped up, darting through traffic.

  Fire could destroy magic, but it didn’t do so elegantly. That much energy had to go somewhere, and inevitably some of it went into the spells. When I’d been there before, I hadn’t seen any signs of a shop selling magic. Either this was a regular fire, or an unlicensed shop had gone up in flames. If it was the latter, they’d heavily shielded their merchandise to prevent people like me from discovering it.

  “Two miles to destination,” the navigation said.

  I searched the sky, finding a thick black smoke. For a moment, it formed into the shape of a giant cat before returning to a column.

  Yup, that was a magical fire.

  But the fire department had dealt with magical fires before. In college, the coffee shop went up in flames, including all the enchanted syrups they used to give drinks an extra special boost. Half the fire burned hot and fast, likely from the magical, energy-boosting syrup. The other half went on for two days. Theory was the calm syrup had ended up on that side of the fire. The fire department managed it without calling in a witch.

  We made it around a park, and from half a mile away, I could see flames shooting into the air. Traffic slowed as we got closer. We finally made it to the turn lane, and while Harris talked to the officer manning the perimeter, I studied the fire.

  Both ends were relatively unscathed. The massive fire was concentrated in the middle of the building. Pro Swing’s sign was down to ‘WING,’ and the W was listing. The flames reached more than forty feet into the air.

  The flames turned bright blue for a count of five before fading to purple and then back to a mix of normal fire colors.

  The officer waved Harris forward.

  The firefighters were staying back from the fire, spraying down the adjoining section of the building. They’d positioned their trucks at the edge of the parking lot. Other emergency vehicles crowded near them. Harris parked on the grass between Crazy Coins and the woods.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  I cracked open my shields to get a feel for the fire. Inside the flames was a knot of spells, more spells than I could count. Fire could destroy spells and what they were attached to, but it wasn’t a peaceful end. Magic attached itself to other magic, twisting with the energy of the fire. In turn, the failing spells fed the fire, increasing the heat and making it act in unpredictable ways.

  The flames seemed to pull back for a moment, and then they spat a ball of fire into the air. It landed between the firefighters controlling a hose and the building, tossing up a wall of flames before it burned out against the asphalt.

  I grabbed chalk, a bottle of water, and a can of spray paint from the trunk.

  “Is chalk the best choice?” Harris asked.

  “If I can find dry pavement to work from, yes. This is going to take a major spell to defuse, and I want to be able to fix a rune if I mess up.” I wasn’t going to risk a bad spell in proximity to this fire. My job was to fix this, not make it worse.

  “Got it.”

  I checked to make sure my badge was visible and walked over to a firefighter who was issuing orders. “Excuse me, I heard you needed a witch.”

  The firefighter wheeled around. Under the hard hat was a distinctly feminine face. “You’re the witch?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call me Kala.” She turned around to look at the fire again. “This place wasn’t registered as a shop containing a high number of magical items, but the fire is behaving like it’s feeding off spells. We started with water before the first manifestation. We tried a neutralization charm, but it didn’t do anything. Right now, we’re trying to keep it from spreading with limited success.”

  “It’s full of spells.”

  “Can you neutralize the magic?”

  “That’s the plan. I’ll be setting up over there.” I pointed to a section of the parking lot that was as far away from the fire as I could get, hadn’t gotten wet yet, and was directly in front of the center of the flames. “Don’t spray it down, or you’ll ruin my work.”

  Kala shook her head. “That’s too close. We’ve seen fireballs shoot out of the building, and they’ve impacted over there. And you need gear.”

  “I don’t see any other open and dry pavement.”

  She shook her head. “It isn’t safe.”

  “It’ll slow me down to work in gear I’m not used to, and I need dry pavement in line with the fire.” I let her think it over. It wasn’t like we had many options.

  Shouts had all of us looking at the flames, now bright pink. That was new and different.

  “Go,” Kala said. “But it isn’t my fault if a fireball gets you.”

  “I’ll try to be nimble.” Keeping an eye on the building, I broke into a jog.

  Harris followed me.

  “What are you doing? You aren’t a witch.”

  “You really don’t see a use for a sylph?”

  He had me there. “Let me know if a fireball or some other nasty comes this way.”

  I dropped to my knees and drew a small circle, surrounding it with runes. For the main spell to work, I needed a direct line to the earth, which the pavement blocked.

  As soon as the last rune was complete, I moved back and drew my wand. A glance at the fire confirmed it was still pink and didn’t appear to be preparing any fireballs.

  Taking a deep breath, I pulled the magic from deep within me and sent it into the runes around the chalk circle. It flowed through the markings, filling them and activating the spell. To my magic sight, they glowed.

  Then the pavement inside the circle lifted up. With it came several older layers of pavement and other sections of the roadbed. Flicking my wand, I directed the chunks to float to the edge of the parking lot and settle onto the ground. Part one complete.

  I went back to the runes and turned the chalk sideways, covering them with more chalk until nothing but a thick white line remained. Then I started another set of runes around the circle. When I finished those, I drew another circle around the runes and lined it with more runes before repeating the process once more.

  “Fireball!”