sed then grabbed my phone and ran downstairs for the backpack.
And only then remembered we didn’t have a car.
I cursed, but I wasn’t about to hang around waiting for a cab—not when Monty’s place was only a couple of streets away. I dug out my keys and, as Belle came clattering down the stairs, opened the front door.
“You want me to call Ashworth?” she said.
I nodded and locked up once we were both out. “I’ll call Aiden.”
I tugged my phone from my back pocket and bolted down the street after Belle. The phone rang a couple of times, then Aiden’s sleep-laden voice said, “What’s happened?”
“Monty’s being attacked.”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
“You’re up at the O’Connor compound?”
“Yeah.” He paused. “You’re obviously running to Monty’s but be careful, Liz. She could be out to grab you both.”
“That’s not what I saw, Aiden. Something else is going on—something other than the immediate need for revenge.”
“That may be so, but I’d still appreciate it if you’re careful.”
“Oh, trust me, the only thing I intend to get burned by is your body heat.”
“Good,” he said, and hung up.
I shoved the phone back into my pocket and picked up my pace to catch up with Belle—a hard task given her longer legs.
“Ashworth and Eli felt the explosion and are on their way,” she said. “They should be there the same time as us.”
I studied the flames shooting skyward and hoped like hell the soucouyant hadn’t taken out the houses—and the people—on either side of Monty’s place. “I guess if this is a trap, we’ll find out pretty quickly if my alterations to the charms worked.”
We continued to pound down the footpath, our footsteps echoing across the night. There were lots of people standing in the middle of Monty’s street, most of them in pajamas or with dressing gowns wrapped tightly around their bodies. A few had hoses out in an attempt to keep the flames from consuming the houses on either side of Monty’s.
His place was just a fire pit. I could feel the force and the heat of it long before we got anywhere near it, and it made me wonder if the soucouyant had simply decided to obliterate him.
If that were the case, then there was very little chance of us ever finding his remains. The flames were white-hot and the house little more than ashy piles that were being picked up and spread in the vortex of the fire.
We stopped out the front of his place; the air practically sizzled, and sweat instantly broke out across my body. I threw up an arm to protect my face from the heat and desperately scanned the front yard.
There was no sign of the soucouyant, but the faintest sliver of her energy lingered in the air. She’d been here, all right. I guessed the question we desperately needed an answer to now was, had she taken Monty as I’d seen? I hoped so, if only because it gave us a chance, however faint, to find and save him. I really didn’t want to lose one of the few relatives I didn’t actually hate.
“There’s absolutely nothing left,” Belle said, shock in her voice. “She’s obliterated everything.”
A finger of fire flicked toward us. We both took a quick step back, but its speed and reach died little more than a dozen feet away from the main blast. But it was warning enough—get too close, and the fire would hit us.
The squeal of tires rose above the babble of noise behind us, and I looked around to see Eli’s truck race toward us. It slid to a halt, then the two men climbed out and ran toward us.
“Oh, fuck,” Ashworth said. “How likely is it that he’s in there?”
I hesitated. “That depends.”
He glanced at me sharply. “On what?”
“On whether what I saw in my vision is true or not. This part of it certainly is.”
“Meaning she’s taken him?”