I gathered my Beneath magic within me. I had to concentrate, or this would end in disaster. I wanted to break a hole in the wall big enough for the four of us to escape, but I could end up bringing the rest of the roof down, or blowing up the entire town of Flat Mesa. I never knew with Beneath magic.
I remained with my arms pressed flat against the wall, leaning my cheek into the unfinished brick. I let the Beneath magic rise, not focusing it on one point—my fingers, for example—but let it permeate every limb, my torso, even my face.
The magic filled me, embracing me in heat that was at the same time burning cold. I heard Lopez gasp and say, “Shit.”
I opened my eyes. A silver white glow lit the cell block. It was emanating from me—from my entire body. I felt the magic crackle through me, power mounting in increments, like an intense light slowly warming and coming to life. I let the power grow, directing it—I hoped—to the outer wall.
The bricks began to smoke. I screwed my eyes shut and held my breath, exhaling dust. The wall heated beneath me, growing red hot, then hotter still. It burned me, but then it didn’t. I remained intact, leaning on the wall that began to melt.
Lopez was swearing in a soft voice, in English, then Spanish, then English again. “Janet,” he said after a while. “You okay?”
No, I wasn’t. I started laughing, the power inside making me giddy. I could change the nature of a substance, and I didn’t even need a blowtorch.
I took the very essence of the wall—its bricks, mortar, rebar behind it, the paint and stucco on the outside—and compacted it into its individual molecules, then atoms, then nuclei, then what Mick told me were called quarks, each one tinier than the last. I made the wall dissolve, rendered all substances it was made of into microscopic dust.
With a sudden burst of light, the wall blossomed a hole about six feet by six, sweet night air flooding into the cell block.
Lopez wasted no time. He had the first thug up in a fireman’s carry and out of there. I stood still, my body shaking and on fire, the light consuming me and at the same time throwing illumination, like a torch, into the parking lot.
Lopez charged past me again and grabbed thug number two. “Come on,” he shouted at me as he ran out, the big guy over his strong shoulders. He reached a hand to me.
“Don’t touch me,” I said sharply. My magic hadn’t shut off—it was busily dissolving the floor, more of the walls, and flowing up into the ceiling like powerful and rapidly eating acid. “Find Mick. Tell him I need his help.”
I tried to dampen the Beneath magic, but it often had a mind of its own. It liked destruction, so when I used it for that, it latched on and kept going. Like an eager dog that didn’t want to stop until it had chewed up everything in sight, the Beneath magic continued to eat away at the jail.
I had spent a terrifying night here, and it drew on that remembered panic, deciding to obliterate the place for me. The ceiling shuddered, bricks and whatever was packed inside the ceiling raining on me like a deluge of hail.
“Janet,” Lopez cried. He ran for me, stretching out his hand, ready to haul me out.
“Go away!” I shouted, and slapped him with a burst of white magic. Lopez sailed backward, landing in the parking lot on top of the thugs.
I pushed a bubble of magic around myself, trying to keep the ceiling from crushing me in the magic’s exuberance. If I could press the bubble outward, calm the magic down, and then dive through the hole, I might just make it out of the jail alive.
The Beneath magic, on the other hand, wanted to go on a wrecking spree. It didn’t care that it would kill me along the way. It was heartless, eternal, and would find another way to go on without me.
I drew a breath, the air still under my magical canopy, and pressed it outward. I’d practiced meditation and other calming magics with Mick, he knowing that I needed all the help I could get. Thinking of him, his dark eyes, his flash of sexy smile, helped, as did the cool feel of the turquoise and silver ring on my finger.
I exhaled. The Beneath magic would ease, and I would walk out of here and find out what had happened to Mick. And then I’d kill Emmett for putting him in danger like that …
A sudden darkness squeezed me, robbing me of all breath. My head came up, my meditation shattered.
What …?
“Janet,” snarled a familiar voice. “What the hell have you done to my jail this time?”
Nash walked right in through the hole I’d made. In the presence of his null field and magic-canceling aura, the Beneath magic squeaked and died in an instant.
The next moment, the entire cell block collapsed. Nash grabbed for me, but he couldn’t reach me in time, and he sprang back out of the way.