The Conjurer (The Vine Witch #3)(56)
At last the funicular reached the platform at the bottom. The dog leaped from the car and ran for the lee side of the depot building. Down the track, a whistle sounded, loud and shrieking, as the train approached the station. The locomotive emerged through the brown cloud of debris as steam billowed sideways out of its smokestack. The wheels slowed, the brakes squealed, and the chugging of the engine gasped to a stop as the passenger cars aligned with the platform. Faces pressed against the windows, staring incredulously at the building storm and the odd trio awaiting them in front of the station, their backs turned to the wind. Elena searched for Jean-Paul through the glass, but he wasn’t among the gawkers. He had to be there. Her vision couldn’t have been wrong.
A strong gust battered the side of the passenger cars, rocking the train on the rails. Screams of surprise from the women inside carried over the shrill wind. The conductor leaned out the door and peered at the station, but he wouldn’t find anyone inside to confer with about the storm since Camille and Yvette had done a proper job of putting them to sleep as well. The conductor cupped his hands around his mouth, about to shout for the crew, when Jean-Paul pushed him aside and jumped from the train. Elena called out for him, the wind and face covering muffling her voice. She tore the wrap from her face and shouted again. He saw her then and ran, embracing her even as the strengthening storm blew sand hard enough to scrape their skin and scratch their eyes.
“My God, are you all right?” he asked once he released her.
She nodded. “I knew you were coming. I saw you’d woken from your fever.”
He hugged her again. “That damned jinni. I swear I’ll kill him if I see him again.”
“It’s him. This storm. Jamra called it up to punish Sidra,” she yelled. “Yanis says it’s only going to get worse.” Elena quickly introduced Jean-Paul to the village sorcerer.
“We must get everyone off the train and sheltered in the station,” Yanis said to Jean-Paul after a quick handshake. He turned to Elena as another gale rocked the train, nearly tipping it off its wheels. “There’s no time to get anyone back to the shop. The storm is almost at full force.”
And just as he said it, the windows of the passenger cars exploded, sending shards of glass flying into the side of the depot. Panicked screams followed as people aboard ran for the exits. They pushed past each other, squeezing two and three at a time out the doors and onto the platform. Men and women tripped, falling to their knees as a strong gust whipped them from behind. But it wasn’t merely the wind that assaulted them.
A pair of fiery demons, shaped like men but with a corona of flames for hair and eyes that glowed orange and red, descended from a whirlwind above. They landed on the roof of the railcar with hands ablaze. The ifrit.
They wasted no time racing atop the cars, setting the roofs on fire. In the heavy winds, the flames spread in seconds, engulfing the passenger cars before everyone had escaped.
“We have to get everyone out!” Elena shouted as women in long skirts crawled through the narrow windows, tumbling onto the wooden platform.
Yanis hobbled to the end of the train. Jean-Paul, still weak from his fever, barely kept up. Together they pulled the people free of the windows and doors, then urged them to go to the depot for safety. A dozen people still struggled to escape the front end as the cars swayed violently with each new blast of wind. Elena screamed for them not to panic, to no avail.
“What are those things?” a man shouted, cupping his hands around his eyes as he squinted at the roof of the train cars. Before Elena could answer, the dog leaped from the ground like cannon fire. He snarled and snapped his teeth at the first of the ifrit as it was about to stomp its foot through the car’s roof. Elena worried the demon would plunge a plume of fire on the heads of those still inside. Instead it threw the stream of fire at the dog. The animal’s fur burned bright orange, but then the flame receded as if it had been absorbed into his body. He lunged, tearing at the ifrit’s leg until the demon fell backward off the roof and plummeted into the crevice between the wheels of the locomotive and the platform. The dog jumped onto the coal tender and shook out his fur. As if on command, the engine spewed a column of hissing steam from its boiler, extinguishing the fire demon so that it shriveled into a pile of wet ash, leaving a sooty smudge on the side of the platform.
The second ifrit leaped over the dog, landing in the cab of the locomotive. Elena watched in horror as the creature inhaled the seething fire glowing in the coal burner. Water! She had to find water. Or as close to it as she could muster. She reached into her satchel as the wind whipped her hair around her face. There had to be something of use. Sand, still hot from the desert sun, grazed her cheek with its stinging bite as her hand hit the sack of salt. Salt and sand. Of course!
Elena grabbed a handful of salt with one hand, then held out the other until she felt the grit cover her palm. Turning her back to the wind, she eyed a standpipe coming out of the ground. She rubbed the sand and salt together, focusing her intent while reciting her spell, as the dog and demon lurched at each other inside the cab. “Desert sand within my hand, fill your thirst at my command. Draw forth the water ’neath the ground, until the fire is neatly drowned.”
The pipe used for filling the steam engine boilers with water creaked and moaned under the pressure of the spell. Elena called the water forth as she held her hand out to direct the flow of energy, prying open the spigot and bending the nozzle toward the train. The dog’s ears went up, and he bounded out of the way just as a gush of water shot from the pipe with enormous pressure to spray the burning cars. The flames on the roof sizzled and sputtered, while the ifrit emerged from the cab of the engine looking like a wet sock. The beast spread his wings and flew off until slowly disintegrating into lavalike pieces that scattered over the rocky hillside.