The kidnappers' car sped along the winding forest road, whipping around curves, dipping into ravines where the morning mist wafted like smoke.
More ley lines struck through the woods, from the right, from the left, from behind. Blind to the phenomena, the mobster on Emily's left lit a cigarette and handed the pack of smokes across her to his confederate.
Slicing through stands of Douglas fir on every side, palings of cold fire blazed from the earth itself, stabbing up to pierce the heavy shrouds of boughs overhead.
Whatever was coming, would it help Emily escape her captors?
Could she afford to wait and dumbly hope for salvation? Now was the time to act!
She maneuvered the shepherd's whistle in her mouth, cradled it with her tongue, drew a deep breath, closed her eyes -- then hurled all her wind through the carved channels of the whistle.
It shrieked, an ear-piercing dagger of sound, caught in the close confines of the sedan.
The young driver yelled and clapped his ears.
The car veered and plunged into a ditch just as Emily braced herself.
The gangster to her left flew forward and banged heads with the driver. The guy on her right toppled halfway into the front seat, cigarettes flying like confetti.
Emily leaned over the limp form of the hoodlum beside her, but the door was jammed. She grabbed the window crank and worked it round and round, started crawling out.
A hand latched onto her ankle. The other gangster had recovered, apparently. She kicked until he let go, then she fell the rest of the way out the window.
Ley lines blazed on all sides, racing to one convergence point up the bank.
Emily scrambled toward that focal point, too, grasping at ferns and brambles to pull herself up.
She heard noises from behind. Jammed doors banging and squealing open. Furious men shouting. Heavy footsteps.
Emily neared the blazing center, ley lines stretching from all directions to meet here like spokes in a great fiery wheel. She faltered, then bolstered her determination and leaped into the eerie smokeless flames, whirling to face her pursuers. Sparks seemed to shoot from her fingers as she waved to keep her balance. Her long gray hair, already spilling from the morning's bun, whipped around her head in a wind from another realm.
Shock took their faces. Anger melted into fear.
Thenthe earth fell out from beneath them all.
.
prompt: smoke
YOU ARE READING
Gossamer
Fantasy(cozy fantasy.) Her aging heart sputters, her life drawing near its end. Emily barely musters the strength to follow a trio of cats one evening, into an eerie light that winds like silken strands through the night. Gossamer threads tangle and flare...
