The Conjurer (The Vine Witch #3)(64)
Jamra glared past her at the intruders. “Is this who you summoned? These witches and sorcerers you fraternize with?”
“They are nothing. Flies in the ointment. Leave them be. I will help you search for the dagger.”
Beside her, the perfume witch rose to her feet. A dazed look of disbelief filled her eyes as she surveyed the damage done to her shop. But her expression transformed to one of pure anger when she spotted Yvette restrained by the ifrit with an iron ring. Sidra watched as the rage traveled from the witch’s eyes to her lips. Camille whispered pungent, biting words under her breath. Jamra ordered her to be still, but she would not be silenced as she cast her spell, breathing in and closing her eyes.
When the witch exhaled, a cloud gathered from the spilled perfume and blew toward the ifrit’s eyes. The perfume hit him full in the face. His eyes watered as he coughed and spewed phlegm, gagging on the scent of jasmine and musk. The beast smoldered into ash and vanished into the ether, leaving Yvette behind.
“Filthy witch!” Jamra drew his hand up and clenched his fist until his knuckles whitened. Camille, as if stricken by a sudden headache, pressed her fingertips to her temples. A second later her nose bled and she dropped to the floor.
Sidra calculated the risk. Iron was tricky, but the ifrit was no conjurer of sophisticated magic. The inferior metal would have disintegrated eventually. She snapped the ring from the girl’s neck with a nudge of her chin before Jamra looked away from the witch.
Yvette gasped for air, checking her neck for damage. Glimmering as her body rebounded from the effect of the iron, she floated in between the witch and Jamra. “What have you done to her, you stupid cochon?”
Fire and smoke, the girl couldn’t be subdued for one minute?
Jamra appeared amused at first by Yvette’s bravado. Then his temper darkened again as she knelt to help her friend recover. “Stand away from her,” he said. When she refused, flicking her fingers under her chin at him, his eyes sparked with hatred.
Sidra knew the deadly instinct that coiled inside him. “The girl is brash,” she said and waved her hand to downplay Yvette’s actions. “Forget her foolishness. She and the witch are nothing but smoke in your eyes.”
A thread of tension tingled at her back. Elena and Yanis had both called their power to them. Their energy thrummed in the air, as did the kaleidoscope of odd swirling energy still hovering above. If Jamra didn’t feel it too, he was a fool. He formed a fist again as if to make Yvette suffer the same fate as Camille when Yanis shoved him hard with a blocking spell to knock him off balance. “Prophets protect us,” she said, knowing the courage it took for him to confront Jamra.
“Careful, sorcerer. One might think you wish to play with fire.” The jinni righted himself and hurled a stream of flame at Yanis’s wooden leg. The magus managed to deflect the worst of it with a defensive spell, yet the odd angle of the strike allowed a sliver of fire to find its mark. The air filled with the smell of burnt oak. Yanis beat the fire out with his worn taqiyah.
Before Jamra could strike a second time, Sidra pushed her sleeves up, emboldened by the sorcerer’s courage. She conjured a cobra the length of a man. Unlike before, this one was no smoke-and-air illusion. With one spit in the eye, it could take down an elephant, but she would settle for a single angry jinni. She sent the cobra sidewinding toward Jamra’s feet with its hood up, hissing in a low growl. The serpent stood on its tail, ready to strike. She flicked her finger, directing the snake to lunge for an artery, but its prey was quicker. Damn Jamra. He shifted out of the way with cursed speed and sizzled the snake to ash before Sidra could send it in for a second bite. Thankfully the others had sensibly removed themselves from Jamra’s line of sight as soon as the snake appeared.
“The sigil is near, jinniyah, I can sense it. Close enough to find on my own, which means you are nothing but ash to me.”
The jinni whispered into the hollow space inside his fist. A whip made of fire appeared in his hand. He snapped the end so that it crackled and smoked in the air, threatening ungodly pain. Sidra shrank back as he flicked the whip, touching the fiery end to the set of powder-blue drapes framing the broken window at her side. Taunting her. Teasing her with his near miss. The drapes caught fire, sending smoke wafting through the main floor of the factory.
Fire was nothing. “Child’s play,” she said and stood by the flames, calling them to her, drawing them off the curtains. They clung to the hem of her robe, climbed up her sleeves, crowned her head in a blaze of orange. She blew on her fingertips, creating an intense blue blaze, then shook the flames from her body until they turned to smoke and went out.
“You can do better than that.” She faced Jamra, turning with him as they circled each other.
“Don’t do this, Sidra!” Yvette cried from the other side of the room. “Just poof off!”
The girl didn’t know the power of seeing one’s destiny in flickering fire and the omens of birds. From her periphery, Sidra spied the silvery light on the ceiling rotate with purpose. Everything seemed to be turning, spinning, coiling tighter. Fate was winding itself up, ready to spring its control on her. Chaos or calm? Life or death?
“Go,” she said to her comrades as Jamra lashed his whip. The fiery tip wrapped around her neck. The fire bit. The rope clinched. The room spun as she twisted off her feet.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE