One of Grimes's men appeared in the doorway. His eyes locked onto the bit of metal gleaming in my hand.
"No!" he shouted, realizing what I was about to do.
"Stop - "
I grinned again, clicked the lighter on, and tossed the flickering flame onto the floor.
WHOOSH!
The thing about mountain moonshine that made it so irresistible to some folks was the high alcohol content. I'd only been sucking down the fumes for a minute, and I already felt light-headed. In my case, I wasn't looking for a buzz so much as a burn, and I got one.
It only took a second for the fire to zip across the alcohol trail that I'd created on the floor and over to the puddles of liquor. It wouldn't be long before the flames would cause more of the glass jars to shatter, which would add even more fuel to the fire. I grinned into the heat of the flames even as the guy at the door turned and ran.
This should keep at least a few of Grimes's men busy and out of the hunt. Otherwise, the whole camp might go up in smoke - and wouldn't that just be a crying shame.
Shouts rose from the front of the building as smoke boiled up and the fire started edging toward the windows.
The shimmering red-orange flames made the stills glow a bright copper.
Crack!
Crack! Crack!
Crack!
I ducked, thinking that the idiots outside were shooting at the building, but it was only the glass jars breaking. More moonshine spilled to the floor, and the flames arched higher.
"Burn, baby, burn," I murmured, encouraging the fire a final time before turning and running out the back door.
Chapter Twenty-two
Several working stills squatted in the backyard behind the building, but they were far too big and heavy for me to tip over and add to the mayhem, so I raced past them, my eyes fixed on the woods ahead.
Crack!
Crack! Crack!
Crack!
Bullets pinged off the metal stills and pipes and rattled away into the trees. Apparently, my five minutes were already up. Or maybe I'd forfeited my laughable head start by not playing by the rules.
Apparently, not as many of Grimes's men as I thought were staying behind to fight the fire, because more shouts rose behind me.
"There she is!"
"I see her!"
"Get that bitch!"
I hopped over the white picket fence at the edge of the yard and darted into the woods. Despite the fact that men with guns were chasing me, I still made myself slow down and watch where I put my feet so I wouldn't fall victim to one of the traps strung up around the camp. I had no desire to escape the hunting party only to get a face full of elemental Fire from a sunburst rune seared into one of the trees.
But the good thing about nasty surprises like booby traps was that they could work both ways - like helping me thin out the murderous herd thundering through the forest behind me.
I darted through the woods as fast as I could, searching for anything that might trip me up - or at least injure one of my pursuers. More bullets crackled through the trees and leaves around me, but they weren't as close as they had been before, meaning that I'd managed to put a little distance between myself and my would-be murderers.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the sun gleaming on something close to the forest floor, and I veered in that direction. Even though I knew it was there, it still took me a few seconds to spot the fishing line. The trap was identical to the first one that Warren had disarmed earlier. One end of the line taped to a sunburst rune that had been scorched into a tree trunk, the line running across the path at ankle level, then the other end wrapped around a small peg that had been pounded into the ground.
Perhaps Lady Luck had finally decided to smile on me, because this particular peg was actually hidden by a thick rhododendron bush. I stepped off the path and crouched down behind the bush, making sure that I was as hidden as I could be by the arching branches and green, glossy leaves. Then I carefully took hold of the fishing line and waited - just waited.
Ten . . . twenty . . . thirty . . . forty-five . . . sixty . . .
I counted off the seconds in my head as I listened for sounds of pursuit. Finally, after about three minutes, two men came crashing through the woods toward me, rifles clutched in their hands. I peered through the branches at them.
"Did you see her?"
"Where did she go?"
"We need to find her!"
They shouted back and forth to each other as they moved through the woods. Grimes had trained them well. The two men stayed within sight of each other at all times so they could watch each other's back, and they were close enough together that they wouldn't miss me hiding in a clump of bushes between the two of them.
Slowly, they crept toward my position. I stayed still and quiet, my blistered, bloody fingers curled around the thin fishing line, as though I were a spider hanging on to a piece of my own web.
"careful," one of the men said as they neared me. "You know this section is dotted with traps."
"What kind?" the other man asked. "Pits, snares, or Fire?"
"Fire, I think," the first man replied. "But you don't want to trip any one of them."
The other man nodded his head and started moving forward again, his eyes sweeping the forest floor, while his buddy kept a lookout on the landscape around them.
The men were fifteen feet away from me . . . ten feet . . . seven . . . five . . . three . . . one . . .
"Stop," the first guy said. "I see some fishing line. Be careful - "
I grinned and yanked on the line, pulling the tape free of the sunburst. The rune flared to life on the tree trunk on the opposite side of the path, burning an angry red in warning.
"What the - " That was all the first guy got out before a ball of elemental Fire exploded all over him. He went down in a singed, smoldering heap, screaming and clawing at the flames that were melting his skin, hair, and eyes.
The second man stared down dumbstruck at his buddy, as if he couldn't believe that the other man had been careless enough to actually trip the trap. I surged to my feet. A branch crackled under my foot, but I didn't care. The man whirled around just in time for me to slam my fist into his chest. He staggered back, and I yanked the rifle out of his hands, flipped it around, and shot him in the throat with his own weapon. He was dead before he thumped to the forest floor -
The feel of hot, invisible bubbles popping against my skin was the only warning that I had that I wasn't alone. I threw myself down onto the ground.
A ball of elemental Fire slammed into the tree above me, showering me with hot sparks and smoldering splinters. Another gust of magic swept through the air. I grabbed the guy I'd shot and rolled him over so that he was on top of me. A second later, another ball of Fire hit the tree a few feet above my head. The flames washed over the man's body, burning through his clothes and leaving nothing behind but charred, ashy, flaky skin. The amount of Fire would have killed him had he not already been dead.