The streetlights had come on along Park Avenue, and Jane strained to see the familiar glow of a free taxi. She pushed Malcolm, bloodied and limping, down the avenue. The light changed and a fleet of taxis rushed toward them. One screeched to a halt several feet in front of them, the red taillights flashing. Jane slid across the seat and Malcolm slammed the door behind them.

“Grand Central,” he announced.

The driver put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. Jane breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing into the seat as the car lurched forward. But just two blocks later, the wheels locked with a sharp thud and the cab jolted to a stop in the middle of the road. “What the—” the driver muttered darkly. A black BMW zoomed past, and a minivan taxi leaned on its horn, coming within inches of their stalled cab.

“What are you doing?” Jane cried to the driver. Malcolm breathed heavily through his mouth; his nose had begun to bleed again.

“I’m not doing anything! It’s the damn car.” The driver threw the car in and out of gear a few times to no avail, and even shut off the engine before restarting it. The car hummed to life, making all of the right noises, but wouldn’t budge so much as an inch along the pavement.

“Forget it,” Malcolm ordered, grimacing as he reached for the door. “Let’s just take a different cab.”

Jane clutched Malcolm’s wrist urgently, every hair on her arm standing on end. The air had changed. It was thicker somehow, foggy almost, and the world outside looked as if it were unfolding in slow motion. Each drop of moisture in the air sparkled like crystal.

“Malcolm,” she whispered, her gaze transfixed on the rear window. “Don’t get out of this car.”

“What?” he asked, baffled, but she turned in her seat and he swiveled to follow her gaze. “Oh shit.”

A wind had picked up, blowing brown leaves across the wide, tree-lined avenue, and the trees in the median and along the sidewalk bent in the sudden gust. But all Jane could see was Lynne, her peach wedding jacket billowing around her as she strode purposefully toward their beached taxi. Her hands were at her sides, and her eyes looked as dark as the night sky. She was walking in the middle of the street, but cars swerved harmlessly past, as if the entire world had bent itself around her. From what Jane could tell, it more or less had.

“She’s doing it,” Jane whispered.

“I know,” Malcolm said. In the front seat, the driver swore and tried the ignition again. “Can you do anything?” Malcolm whispered to Jane.

As if I hadn’t thought of that, Jane thought darkly, probing for any hole in Lynne’s defenses. “She’s too powerful.” Jane turned her attention toward the taxi, but the wall of energy holding them in place was even more intense than the protective cocoon around Lynne. Jane felt like a child who had picked a fight with a grown-up, and she spun the rings on her left hand in frustration. Celine Boyle’s silver band sparked, sending a bolt of electricity down her finger.

Jane’s heart pounded and her eyes narrowed. That bitch killed my grandmother.

Lynne was less than a block away now. Jane knelt on the bench seat, calling her magic and feeling it spark to life in her veins. She stalked me, murdered Gran, attacked my friends, destroyed Malcolm, and tried to have me raped. The power in her grew with every offense Jane recounted, and she suddenly felt very sure that her eyes were as black as her raging mother-in-law’s. The magic thrummed in her veins almost painfully, but she held on, knowing she couldn’t afford to release it carelessly.

An SUV swerved blindly around Lynne’s tall form, and Jane sent out feelers to the protective bubble around her mother-in-law. It was solid and seamless, but it was taking a lot of energy, too: between maintaining her shield and holding the taxi in place, Lynne had nothing left over. We just need one good distraction, Jane thought urgently. One thing to make her forget about us, even just for a second. The trees in the median continued to thrash wildly in the wind that was coming down the avenue along with Lynne. A plan formed in Jane’s head, and she could only hope it would be enough.

She focused hard on the large maple just behind the car. Reaching out with her mind, she felt the rough edges of the dark, splintering bark, and probed the frozen ground that was packed in around the thick roots. She wrapped her mental fingers around those roots, and then yanked back as hard as she could. The blood drained from her face, but she kept pulling, knuckles white on the back of the seat. A tearing noise reached them over the whipping of the wind. Jane’s muscles burned and screamed in agony, each one clenched and focused on the massive trunk.

With a final creak, the tree crashed down lengthwise across the road between Lynne and her prey. Surprise flickered across Lynne’s face for just a moment before it was hidden by the dense branches, and then came the squealing of brakes and the crumpling of metal on metal. Lynne let out a howl of rage as she found herself in the center of a five-car accident that would, Jane hoped, take every ounce of her magic to avoid being crushed under. Or she could just be crushed. That works too.

Jane spun around to face the front of the car. “Drive!” she shouted to the cabbie. “Now!”

Using the last strains of her magic, she shoved the surprised driver’s foot down on the pedal for good measure, and the taxi jolted forward, speeding recklessly down the avenue until the fallen tree was out of sight. To his credit, the cabbie kept the car steady. “Grand Central?” he asked in an almost normal voice, although he was glaring suspiciously at the couple in his rearview mirror.

Malcolm just nodded at him in the mirror, and Jane sank down into the seat, feeling her eyelids force themselves closed.

Twenty blocks of napping, she promised herself, and then back to the daring escape.