Gale Warning
The first bolt of lightning took out the bait freezer.
The second one was aimed at Tori.
Tori threw herself behind a stack of crab traps as white fire split the dock where she’d been standing. The boards exploded. Splinters peppered the side of a charter boat, and every gull in Port Mercy rose screaming into the darkening afternoon sky.
So much for bringing him in quietly.
“Eli Mercer,” she called over the sudden downpour. “You are making a routine collection unnecessarily dramatic.”
“You broke into my boat.”
“The cabin door was open.”
“You picked the lock.”
“Which opened it.”
A low growl rolled across the marina. Not Eli. The clouds.
Five minutes ago, the sky had been August blue and hot enough to fry grouper on the hood of her truck. Now a thunderhead squatted directly over Slip Nineteen, black at its center and spinning at the edges. Rain hammered Eli’s boat, the dock, and Tori while sunshine glittered on the water fifty yards away.
Localized weather was showy, dangerous, and illegal without a permit. Eli had managed all three before skipping his hearing and vanishing with two borrowed storm jars. One jar had been recovered from a motel room in Tallahassee. The other was currently feeding the cloud above her head.
Routine collection, my ass.
A pleasant voice sounded through her right earbud.
“Atmospheric electrical discharge detected within twelve feet.”
Tori peeked between two rusted traps. Eli stood on the aft deck of the Gale Warning with one hand raised. Blue-white magic crawled between his fingers.
“No shit, PIMA.”
“I am unable to locate ‘no shit’ within the approved response protocols.”
“That’s because Mel wrote the protocols.”
Her younger sister had created the Personal Integrated Magical Assistant because apparently regular phone apps weren’t intrusive enough. Then she’d spelled the damn thing into Tori’s phone, linked it to her earbuds, and informed her it would make fieldwork safer.
Tori called it Pain In My Ass.
PIMA objected to the translation.
Frequently.
Another bolt hit the aluminum roof of the bait shop. Every fluorescent tube inside flashed at once, followed by a pop and the unmistakable smell of thawing squid.
“Electrical discharge now detected within eight feet.”
“I noticed.”
“Would you like me to contact emergency services?”
“No.”
“Magical enforcement?”
“Definitely no.”
“Melody?”
“PIMA.”
“Interpreting tone as negative.”
Finally, something the app understood.
Tori checked the binding line wrapped around her wrist. Copper thread, red cord, and seven knots sealed with wax from their kitchen candles. It wasn’t pretty, but pretty spells were for rituals with clean floors and adequate preparation. Field magic needed to survive sweat, swamp water, and people who threw lightning when cornered.
She had stretched the line around four dock cleats before approaching Eli’s boat. All she needed was to finish the binding mark beneath the center piling and draw him into the square.
Unfortunately, the center piling was now beneath six inches of fast-moving water.
The chalk mark had become a pale smear drifting toward the Gulf.
Tori stared at it.
The universe had opinions about planning. Most of them were rude.
“Last chance, Eli.” She unwound the copper line from her wrist. “Power down the storm and step onto the dock.”
“So the council can lock me up?”
“They’re more interested in the property damage and the part where you didn’t appear in court. Stop adding charges and you might be home before hurricane season is over.”
His laugh carried a sharp edge of panic. Good. Panic made people sloppy.
It also made storm mages pull power faster than they could control it.
Eli looked toward open water.
There it was.
He wasn’t planning to fight his way past her.
He was planning to run.
The Gale Warning’s engine coughed to life. Eli had left it idling, which explained why the whole boat shuddered every time the wind shoved it against the dock. One stern line was already loose. The second twitched beneath the pressure of a small cutting charm.
If he cleared the pilings, she would have to chase him onto open water.
Her truck contained three emergency spell kits, two changes of clothes, and enough snacks to survive the apocalypse.
It did not contain a boat.
She preferred her fugitives on land.
Tori stepped out from behind the crab traps.
“Probability of injury has increased,” PIMA announced.
“Helpful.”
“Would you like the percentage?”
“No.”
“Seventy-three.”
“PIMA.”
“Seventy-six.”
“Shut up.”
“I do not have a shut-up function.”
Of course Mel hadn’t given it one.
Eli hurled the lightning.
Tori dropped flat. The bolt passed over her and struck the mast of the Gale Warning. Magic flashed down the rigging in branching veins. Eli swore and jerked his hand back, but she was already moving.
She sprinted across the rain-slick dock, jumped the gap where two boards had blown apart, and snapped the loose end of her binding line around the nearest cleat.
A wall of wind hit her sideways.
Her left foot slipped off the dock, and her knee slammed hard enough against the boards to make her vision flash. For one ugly second, she hung over the water by both hands while the current dragged at her boot.
“Probability of injury—”
“Not. Helping.”
Eli grinned down at her.
That annoyed her more than the knee.
She hooked one arm around the cleat, hauled herself up, and flung the copper line toward the rigging.
It missed.
The line whipped back and wrapped itself around a plastic flamingo bolted to the neighboring boat’s railing.
The flamingo’s painted eyes lit gold.
Tori stared at it.
“Do not.”
It flapped its plastic wings once.
PIMA chimed in her ear.
“Unregistered magical manifestation detected.”
“You think?”
“I am ninety-eight percent confident.”
Some problems belonged to Future Tori.
The original spell was gone. Fine.
Spells were instructions, not commandments.
Usually.
She grabbed the wet copper in both hands and reached for the magic threaded through her blood.
It answered too fast.
Heat rushed up her arms. The seven knots flared gold, one after another, and the line whipped away from her. It raced around the cleats, down the pilings, and across the rigging of Eli’s boat, turning the entire end of the marina into one enormous, extremely questionable binding circle.
Eli’s eyes widened.
“What did you do?”
“Improvised.”
“That isn’t a spell.”
“It is now.”
She pulled.
The binding snapped shut.
Every drop of rain stopped in midair.
For one perfect second, thousands of silver beads hung around them. Eli froze with one foot on the railing, blue magic trapped between his fingers. Even the gulls seemed to reconsider their life choices.
Then the storm folded.
The cloud twisted downward in a dark funnel, dragging wind, rain, and one very startled pelican toward the Gale Warning.
Eli screamed.
She tightened her grip as the boat rocked against its lines.
“Warning,” PIMA said. “Atmospheric containment pattern is unstable.”
“The spell is working.”
The funnel yanked a deck chair into the air.
“Please define working.”
The chair vanished into the cloud.
“Later.”
The copper line burned against her palms. Tori planted her boots and pulled the storm toward the dock, aiming for the empty glass jar strapped to Eli’s belt.
If he had used it to release the weather, it could hold the weather again.
Assuming it wasn’t cracked.
Assuming her binding understood the assignment.
Assuming Mother Magic was in a cooperative mood.
That was a troubling number of assumptions.
The jar lit from within.
Wind shrieked over the water as the funnel narrowed. Eli’s coat, hair, and dignity all pointed toward his belt. The cloud compressed, turning from black to gray to a pulsing ball of blue light no larger than her fist.
The last thread of storm slammed into the jar.
The lid snapped closed.
Silence dropped over the marina.
Eli hung half over the railing, tangled from shoulders to ankles in glowing copper cord.
The pelican landed on the bait shop roof.
The deck chair did not return.
Tori let out the breath burning in her lungs.
“See?” she said. “Handled.”
PIMA made a soft warning tone.
The storm jar cracked.
“Oh, hell.”
“Structural failure detected.”
“Little late.”
The jar burst with the force of a fire hose.
Gulf water exploded across the boat and dock. It hit Eli first, peeling him off the railing and dropping him into a heap at her feet.
The rest caught her square in the chest.
For the second time that afternoon, she went airborne.
She landed on her back in a mountain of wet fishing net while mullet, shrimp, and something with far too many legs rained from the sky.
A blue crab struck her boot, righted itself, and raised both claws at her like this was somehow her fault.
It had a point.
The localized flood drained through the gaps in the dock, leaving behind six inches of marsh grass, three furious crabs, and enough baitfish to feed half the county.
Eli groaned beside her.
She rolled onto one elbow. The copper binding still glowed around him.
Good enough.
“Target appears immobilized,” PIMA said.
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome.”
She yanked the earbud out.
Twenty minutes later, a pair of magical enforcement officers loaded Eli into the back of a warded SUV. One of them signed her capture receipt while carefully avoiding eye contact with the crab clinging to her sleeve.
“You know,” Officer Ramos said, “most hunters use cuffs.”
“He had weather.”
Ramos looked at the shredded dock, the ruined bait freezer, and the mullet flopping beneath his vehicle.
“Apparently, so did you.”
He handed back her receipt before she could explain the important difference between causing a disaster and redirecting one with unexpected enthusiasm.
The enforcement SUV pulled away.
Marina workers emerged from hiding and stared at her.
Tori smiled.
Nobody smiled back.
The bait shop owner stepped onto what remained of his porch. He held a half-thawed bag of squid in one hand and pointed at the scorch mark across his roof with the other.
“Who’s paying for that?”
She glanced at the signed capture receipt. The council’s property-damage clause was written in letters so small they required either a magnifying glass or a willingness to remain happy.
“There’s a reimbursement form.”
His expression suggested the form and Tori could both go directly into the Gulf.
Her phone buzzed in her coat pocket.
Against her better judgment, she pulled it out.
The PIMA icon glowed innocently on the screen.
FIELD INCIDENT REPORT COMPLETE.
Beneath it:
PROPERTY DAMAGE: EXTENSIVE.
Then another line appeared.
NOTIFY MELODY?
“No.”
The screen blinked.
TOO LATE.
“Traitor.”
A truck turned into the marina parking lot.
Of course it did.
Mel leaned across the passenger seat and pushed open the door.
“You smell like low tide.”
“Hello to you too.”
Tori gathered her soaked coat, her spell bag, and the cracked remains of the storm jar.
A tiny gray cloud drifted after her.
It had been following Tori since the jar exploded, hovering six inches above her head and raining only on her.
Mel watched it through the windshield.
“Is that coming with us?”
A small bolt snapped from the cloud and singed the end of Tori’s braid.
“Temporarily.”
Mel’s gaze dropped to the phone still in Tori’s hand.
“Did PIMA help?”
Tori looked at the cheerful little icon.
“No.”
The app said, “That assessment is not supported by available data.”
Mel grinned.
Tori pointed at her.
“You made it. You fix it.”
“PIMA is perfect.”
“PIMA tattled.”
“It has safety protocols.”
“It called you.”
“Exactly.”
She climbed into the truck and shut the door.
Rain pattered against the inside of the cab.
“Auntie is going to kill you,” Mel said.
Their aunt might forgive her.
Eventually.
The house was going to hate this.
***
Author’s Note
New chapters will be posted daily, so follow the story to make sure you don’t miss what happens next!
Thank you for reading—I hope you enjoy the magical mishaps. 💜
