“Is this going to burn down the rest of the house?” I examined the walls, the house beyond us. It was far enough from its neighbors that the firefighters would be able to put it out before it spread. However, as a Californian, I wasn’t much of a fan of fire at all.
“I think I can limit it to this room, as long as the bamboo aren’t growing runners under the floor?”
He glanced at me, and I read in his gaze curiosity more than suspicion. He clearly didn’t understand witchcraft any more than I understood alchemy.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
Nonetheless, I pulled some of my magic back from the bamboo, and felt it begin to wither. It was drying up, its root system disintegrating into nothing. “You should work quickly.”
King snorted at my command, but after examining the alchemy circle for a moment he stepped back and pressed his palm to the outer circle. It glowed green, and when his eyes opened, they looked like two lights in the darkness.
I felt myself drawn towards him, a moth to those bright flames. He was powerful. I hadn’t ever seen an alchemist with as much power as he had… Well, ever. With that much power, what was he doing playing the cop?
I didn’t have time to worry about it, because the flames were instantaneous.
King might not be sure that his spell would keep itself to the room, but I could be. I drew on the water I still felt swirling out of McCallum’s sink. It puddled on the floor, sucked up by the thirsty bamboo. With a soft hum of song, I coaxed it to circle the bamboo forest, a swirling whirlpool of water that lapped atmy feet. Anytime a spark dropped from one of the tall bamboo shoots, it was instantly doused in the water.
My eyes glanced at King, expecting him to question it, but his eyes were already on the massive spider, which was now panicking as flames surrounded it.
It was rearing back, circling, trying to get out. King looked up, and began chanting. The chandelier above the spider crashed to the ground, and our panicking, murderous spider was now a pancake.
Not one that I wanted to eat, no matter the fact that I hadn’t had any food since lunch almost eighteen hours ago.
The flames were reaching higher, as the fire ate through everything. I drew in more magic, so that the bamboo became brittle, collapsing in on itself.
I squinted at it. I could feel the heat from the flames, it stretched my skin, drying me out. But there was something else that was bugging me.
“Did you design this fire to only burn bamboo?” I asked.
“Yeah,” King said, panting. “That’s what took so long.”
“There’s an alchemy circle to just burn bamboo?” One of the downsides of alchemy is that the spells have to be memorized. Unlike kitchen witchcraft, which can take almost anything on hand to do what you need in incredibly messy fashion, alchemy is so specific that an alchemist can spend years memorizing even the most basic spells.
Witchcraft might be jazz, but alchemy is someone playing scales. Everything exactly the same, over and over and over again. On the other hand, with alchemy you’re much more likely to get the end result that you want with considerably more precision.
Still, a spell just to burn bamboo?
King’s face looked flushed, and I wanted to reach out and check his forehead to make sure that it was just from the heat of the fire and he wasn’t experiencing any magic loss symptoms.
“I may have made some adjustments to a circle,” he said.
My eyebrows shot up. Like I said, alchemists don’t adjust their spells. There is no such thing as creating your own spellwork on the fly in alchemy. As far as I knew, some alchemists spent their lives creating a new spell. And they did it in these lab-like settings where no harm could come to anyone if it went wrong.
“Well, it’s definitely working,” I said. The bamboo forest was now a charred mess, and it looked like none of the spiders had been able to escape.
We heard sirens, and I saw King’s shoulders slumped in relief.
“What took them so long?” I asked.
“Smith must not have called them before we went in,” King said.
“Well, it’s a lot easier to execute an illegal search without a dozen cops on hand,” I offered.
King sighed, but didn’t try to defend his web-encased partner.
Someone pounded on the door, and before King could answer it, there was a shattering sound as someone took a battering ram to the door. Lots of guns and shouting came next, and, in the end, the fire department came in to put out the last of the flames.
I had settled myself at the edge of the scene, trying to figure out the best way to escape before someone asked me about the magic I had been using.
