I was alive, and Ericson was alive, but my elation was premature. I didn't have anything to be celebrating, yet. I lifted my face to the sky.
Thunder growled, near at hand. Lightning danced overhead, somewhere in the clouds, casting odd light and spectral shadows through the roiling overcast.
The storm had arrived.
Raindrops pelted down around me, the big, splashy kind you only really see in the spring. The air grew thicker, hotter, even with the rain falling. I had to think fast, use my head, be calm, hurry up. Ericson's handcuffs still held me fastened to her wrist.
Both of us were coated in dust that was stuck to the stinking, colorless goo, the ectoplasm that magic called from somewhere else whenever generic mass was called for in a spell. The goo wouldn't last long—within a few more minutes, it would simply dissipate, vanish into thin air, return to wherever it had come from in the first place.
