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I realized that maybe it would be a good idea to move back, because the sparks weren’t just for show. They were spells, too, if very weak ones. But there were a lot of them, and they were raining down everywhere.
Including onto a passing garbage scow out on the water, which hadn’t steered away fast enough. And was now a burning garbage scow. Which would have been bad enough, but some levitation charms had been mixed in with the rest of the sparks, so the burning garbage was drifting up into the air and out over the water.
Despite everything, I just watched it for a moment. The blue-black water and the flickering orange-red garbage and the shooting sparks illuminating all the graffiti-covered rocks by the waterside . . . it was strangely beautiful. In a Brooklyn sort of way.
Unlike the huge piece of burning roofing headed straight for us.
I grabbed the reporter and took a leap into a ditch across the road.
“Who are you?” he demanded, staring at me. And I have to give the guy credit. Although for what, I’m not exactly sure, because he yelled the question while the big, jagged piece of metal bisected the cop car.
“Keep your head down!” I told him, while a frantic car alarm informed the fleeing patrolmen that there might be a problem.
“Answer the question,” he told me right back. “And you owe me for my camera!”
I stared at him. “Dick! I just saved your life!”
He frowned. “How did you know my name was Dick?”
“Just a guess,” I snarled, and started to crawl out.
“Wait!” He grabbed my arm. “Where are you going?”
I shook him off. “Out there! You stay here. Unless your shields are way better than most civilians’.”
“So you’re not a civilian?” He looked me over. “You don’t look like a war mage, and even less like a tech. They tend to be easygoing on the dress code, but not to that degree.”
“Dick,” I muttered, and he nodded, and held out a hand.
“Kim.”
“No, Dory.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” But apparently he did mind, and he’d used the ignored hand to grab my arm again.
“Richard Kim,” he clarified. “And you’re Dory—what, exactly?”
“None of your business!”
“Ah, but it is my business. People need to know the truth!”
“The truth is that you’re going to die if you don’t keep your fool head down!” I said, as another piece of detonating warehouse screamed above us.
It wa
s really starting to go up now, which had me worried for Fin. Everybody else around here—including the cops in the copter, who had wisely gotten some air—was shielded or out of range. Even the techs the Corps used went through the same selection process as the tank squad, meaning that they could probably stand inside the building while it burned down and never feel a thing.
I didn’t have their shields, but I’d raced through battlefields tougher than this. I wasn’t worried about me. I was worried about—
“Yes! Yes!” I grabbed the reporter and shook him, while he stared confusedly around. I didn’t care. I’d finally spotted the speedboat out on the water, well beyond the risk of the burning barge, and it even looked like they’d rescued Blue—
I stopped, blinking.
What were they doing?
“What are they doing?” Dick asked, squinting alongside me.
