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another.
    “Do you see it?” Isa breathed.
    She didn’t know how he heard above the siren. Or above the multithroated roar of the hydra.
    Steve glanced at her, white outlining his lips. He clicked off the siren. No one remained in the cars around them to care, much less move out of the way. He nodded.
    An arcane pressure wave built against her shield the closer they drew.
    “Stop the car,” she rasped, her heart a sudden ache in her chest. She didn’t know yet why she’d said it, only that they couldn’t go any closer. Not both of them. “Stop the car!”
    Steve didn’t answer. The car kept moving at a crawl toward the murderous thing.
    “You can’t go down there,” Isa shouted at the windshield, surprised by the surge of determination that seemed to starch her quaking limbs. She undid her seatbelt, grabbed the strap of her backpack, opened her door, and rolled out of the car.
    “Oof!” She hit the cement shoulder and hip first. The raincoat absorbed precious little of the impact. Sharp pain exploded through her shoulder. Her arm went numb.
    Even though the car had measured their speed in a single digit, the momentum was enough that she slid a foot. Maybe more. If she survived the day, she’d have a hell of a fabric burn on her right hip where her jeans had saved her skin from the concrete.
    The door hit a white van and rebounded.
    Steve jerked the car to a halt.
    Isa struggled to her feet in the south wind while he slammed his door into a shiny green sports car.
    “Isa! We don’t have—”
    “You have too much magic to go unnoticed and not enough training to use it to protect yourself!” She hefted the pack strap over her left shoulder and faced him across the hood of the car.
    Outside the sound barrier of the car, she could hear the shrill din of human voices raised in terrified unison. And the crunch of snapping bone in the creature’s many maws.
    Her stomach turned.
    She
didn’t have enough power or training to protect herself from something that had been gorging on blood and magic all afternoon.
    His lips curled. “Someone has to—”
    “It’s why you brought me, Steve.”
    He glanced at the carnage. The flush of rage drained from his face. “What’s your plan?”
    Plan? Isa swallowed hard. “The only hope is to contain it.”
    “You can do that?”
    “I have to try.”
    He blew out an audibly unsteady breath. “Be careful.” He opened his mouth as if to say more, closed it, and nodded once.
    She mirrored the gesture. Her throat closed on what she couldn’t say to his face. So, coward that she was, Isa retreated to business. “No closer. If it starts coming this way, get the hell out of here.”
    Without waiting for an answer, she turned and, ignoring the ache in her hip and shoulder, strode from the frying pan into the fire.
    She reached the first police and aid cars clogging the center of the bridge deck.
    Clouds scudded across the lowering sun. Dark in the next two or three hours. If she couldn’t get the hydra under some kind of control before sundown, the survivors wouldn’t stand a chance. Especially the ones in the water.
    Teeth chattering, pulse hammering in her ears, Isa fought nerves twitching with the impulse to flee.
    The wind could no longer blow away the stench of death, spilled fuel, and the sharp, electrical tang of magic overloading. She and the survivors were running out of time. Arcane sparks could ignite aerosolized gasoline as surely as any physical spark.
    The hydra froze. Every single head swiveled. Too many eyes to count turned to glare at her.
    Isa’s gut clenched.
    Magic rolled through her middle in a queasy-making wave. The ever-present river of shimmering light that ran through her core had given away her approach. She desperately needed it to protect her. And she couldn’t seem to gather enough of her scattered will to summon more than a mote.
    The hydra opened three of its bloody, reeking maws and trilled what sounded like a question. Wondering whether