The Serpent's Curse by Lisa Maxwell (read an ebook week .TXT) 📕

so they could climb up into the engine compartment. The sound of gunshots rang through the air, and North pulled Maggie back to protect her from any stray bullets.

“We need to go,” he told her.

But Maggie shook him off. “We need to be sure.” She turned back to the scene playing out before them.

A moment later, Esta emerged again from the back of the engine, the barrel of a pistol aimed toward the nearest tower.

One, two, three shots erupted from the pistol North had loaned to her, each echoing with the telltale puff of smoke from the firing. But nothing happened.

“Come on,” Maggie whispered.

When the fourth puff of white smoke erupted from the gun, the tower exploded in a burst of blue flame. Two others followed in rapid succession, the sun-dried wooden frames burning so hot and so fast, North had to turn his face away. When he looked back again, flames were licking up into the sky. Blue and purple, green and orange and red, the inferno flickered with energy, like electricity gone feral. Like magic.

The crowd of men below were no longer focused only on the train. Almost as one, they turned in horror. Some fled, while others started working to put out the fires before they could spread, but it was already too late. The buckets of water didn’t touch the strange flames.

The explosions had done their job, just like Esta had thought they would. The posse of men who’d been investigating the other train arrived a few minutes later, charging in on mounts that became immediately skittish at the sight of the strange flames. The horses pranced uneasily beneath their riders, tossing their heads like they could shake away the heat.

A pair of men broke through the posse’s ranks and came to the front. From the way they sat their horses and surveyed the destruction with a kind of stillness, North figured they must be the ones in charge. One of the men listened as the others in the yard all tried to talk at once, pointing and shouting in the direction the train was going, but the other man pushed back his hat and looked to the burning oil towers.

Beneath the brim of the hat, the sun revealed a face North hadn’t seen in at least two years. A face he would never forget. Jot Gunter.

The man owned the ranch North had worked on years before, back in Crabapple, Texas. When Gunter had discovered the mark on North’s wrist, he’d ordered North beaten, tossed from the ranch, and left for dead. Even from that distance, the rancher was easy to recognize, and North could tell that Gunter hadn’t changed one bit. Same heavy white mustache. Same beady eyes. His presence there in the oil fields of Corsicana, Texas, though, was a variable North couldn’t have predicted.

“We have to go. Now,” he said again, this time taking Maggie by the hand and forcibly tugging her along.

“But Esta—”

“This whole crazy plan was her idea,” North reminded Maggie. “She knows where to meet us.” They needed to get away while they could.

As they went, North kept his eye on the engine picking up steam in the distance. But there was no sign of any change, no sign of Esta.

North wasn’t sure what had worried him more—that Esta might run off on them, or that she might not be able to get free of the charging engine. The last time she’d used her affinity, it hadn’t gone well. She wouldn’t tell them what, exactly, had happened, and he hadn’t been sure how smart it was for them to depend on her magic again.

When he’d brought up the issue earlier, she and Maggie had assured him that it would be fine. Esta would only have to hold on to time for a few seconds, long enough to make it off the train without breaking her neck. With luck, everyone else would believe that the Devil’s Thief was still on the locomotive, while the three of them headed the other way. Misdirection, Esta had called it, but North suddenly had a sinking suspicion that the crowd wasn’t the only audience she’d had in mind.

In the distance, the train was going faster. The smoke spewing from its smokestacks turned from a light gray to a darker, dangerous cloud of sooty black. Esta had accomplished what she’d planned to do, and now it was up to him and Maggie to get away from the crowd while they had the chance. North tugged Maggie on, and this time she came willingly, but as they reached the far edges of the oil fields, North felt the earth begin to rumble beneath his feet.

At first he didn’t think much of it, but then he realized it was more than the train he was feeling. The vibrations under his boots were getting stronger even as the train was pulling farther away. It felt like the earth itself was about to split open.

“What’s happening?” Maggie asked, her hand tightening around his as she tried to keep her footing. “My incendiaries wouldn’t cause this.”

“I don’t know, but we need to keep moving.”

He’d barely gotten the words out when the earth beneath the engine broke open into a long, jagged gash that swallowed the train whole. The chasm continued to travel in multiple directions from the place where the train disappeared, and moments later the locomotive itself exploded. Even from that distance, the force of the earth shaking nearly rocked them off their feet. Instinctively, North wrapped himself around Maggie, threw them both to the ground, and covered her with his body.

When the rumbling finally stopped and North allowed himself to look up, the dark iron body of the locomotive was gone. They could see nothing but a column of flames that rose from the broken ground, pouring black, sooty smoke into the sky that blotted out the blue. North cursed long and low as he looked over the terrible scene. He sensed Maggie trembling, and he understood what she