Beast hunts.

My stomach dropped through my shoes. I was halfway over the burnt-out Eagle, trusting my shields to protect me from its lingering heat, when Laz collared me and hauled me backward. “Don’ be a fool, witchy-woman. You go after d’cat, den we all separate an’ whoever out dere, dey pick us off easy. You and me, we find our enemy, den we find de cat.”

My nostrils filled with the scent of sulfur as he spoke. I glanced at my hands: coated in yellow dust, as if the car had been hit with a colored dust-bomb, not a fireball. That seemed slightly important, but less so than glaring futilely at Laz. I nodded. I’d shouted it at every horror movie I’d ever seen: don’t split the party. “Arright. Okay. But what the hell hit us?”

Sulfur’s stench faded, replaced by the cleaner smell of salt. I hadn’t even known salt had a scent, much less one I could recognize, but it permeated the air, sparkling like fairy dust. Then as if remembering it had come from the sea, it sucked water up from the swamp and attacked Laz and me.

I snapped shields around both of us, creating a bubble of air that I figured would last maybe three minutes. This was going to have to be a very short, decisive fight, or we’d suffocate. Teeth bared, I pushed back with my shields.

Water being what it was—malleable, permeable, probably other things that ended with -able too—it rolled around the shield. I had the distinct feeling it was examining my magic, or at least the shields. I hadn’t doubted there was a real live person somewhere in the swamp directing it, but that solidified my certainty. Our voodooine was nearby, controlling the water as it studied my shields. The magic covered my shield, wrapping around it until the rest of the outside world was only a wavering mass.