Sandy Morrison and the Pack of Pussies

Chapter 8

Sandy screamed as soon as the flames flashed in the pan and leapt to three feet. It happened too fast, and she both felt and heard the element expressing shock at its sudden growth. Just as had happened with her fall, her sudden fear triggered her powers, allowing her to “feel” the fire being manipulated.

Unlike before, she didn’t feel any sense of tension, so she felt certain she wasn’t the one controlling the fire. This scared her worse than the fire itself, which was why she continued to scream.

Trisha ran in, and her blue eyes blossomed wide when she saw the tall flames in the blazing skillet. She shouted “Ohmygod!” over and over as she went to look for something under the cabinet.

She found a fire extinguisher, but it didn’t work. The black plastic cone coughed the tiniest white plume, and its quiet hiss was instantly lost under the sizzle of the crackling grease fire.

“Of course he’s too cheap to have a working extinguisher!” Trisha shouted.

This helped Sandy to calm down, and then she could focus enough to look into the fire and find out who was controlling it. The fire shifted and took on new shapes, and then Sandy could see someone inside the flames. She could even make out other color details that the flames shouldn’t have been capable of. Inside the fire was a woman with wavy red hair not unlike her own. She wore a green silk top and a long loose brown skirt that fell to her ankles and hid most of her black leather boots.

The woman looked upset, like she hadn’t expected Sandy to see her. Sandy’s breath caught when she realized this was one of the witches trying to get in contact with her. If they found her, the witches would kill Kyle. She had to shut the spell down before the woman figured out where she was.

Extending her hand, Sandy tried to reach for the flames like she’d grabbed the air. It resisted her for an instant, and then folded back in on itself. Sandy tensed her mental “muscle” harder, trying to make the fire go away.

The flames in the pan vanished, but the fire in the pilot light resisted her.

Then the element reacted with anger to her brute force efforts, looping back to attack her. The fire made no light and had no color. Sandy saw it only as a wavering ripple in the air before the single flame became a giant hand to crush her.

Sandy fought to keep the invisible fire fist at bay. The flames licked the air inches from her skin, and her body felt too hot. Knowing that death would follow if she faltered, she kept her mental muscle tensed, forcing the fire to keep back. But she could not make it back down, and even if it could not get closer, the fire was growing hotter.

Trisha panted at almost the same pace as Sandy, but her attention remained on the smoking skillet with two blackened hamburgers. “Weird, it just went out.” She started to turn her head as she asked, “Did you—?”

She noticed Sandy panting and sweating, and she asked, “Hey, are you all right?”

“The fire is trying to get inside me.” Sandy fought to push the flames a scant half an inch farther away, but the furious element blazed hotter, crushing her in the heart of a furnace. Then the outer ripples of fire took on a ghostly white glow as the air began super heating.

“What the hell?” Trisha reached for Sandy’s arm. She was nowhere near Sandy before she shrieked.

Trisha yanked her hand back fast, but the skin in her palm sizzled even as she flogged her hand up and down. The skin and muscle directly underneath were seared and still audibly cooking though they’d been removed from the heat after only a second of exposure.

Only a moment later, Sandy’s clothing burst into flames in patches. Circles of fire jetted outward, and then the flame hand around Sandy flowed with veins of yellow and orange.