Someone was waiting. She was pointing a wide-mouth weapon at me.

“Crap!” I exclaimed, backpedaling to slam the door shut. Before it closed, a wet splat hit the partition behind me, leaving a gelatinous stain. The back of my neck burned. I reached up, crying out when I found a blister the size of silver dollar. My fingers touching it burned.

“Swell,” I whispered as I wiped the clear goo off on the hem of my jacket. “I don’t have time for this.” Kicking the emergency lock into place, I darted back into the maze. They weren’t using delayed spells anymore. These were primed and loaded into splat balls. Just freaking great. My guess was it had been a spontaneous combustion spell. Had I gotten more than a back splash, I’d be dead. Nice little pile of ash on the Berber carpet. There was no way Jenks could have smelled this coming, even if he had been with me.

Personally, I’d rather be killed by a bullet. That, at least, was romantic. But it was harder to track down the maker of a lethal spell than it was to identify the manufacturer of a bullet or conventional gun. Not to mention that a good charm left no evidence. Or in the case of spontaneous combustion spells, not much of a body. No body. No crime. No need to do time.

“There!” someone shouted. I dove under a desk. Pain jolted my elbow as I landed on it. My neck felt like it was on fire. I had to get some salt on it, neutralize the spell before it spread.

My heart pounded as I shimmied out of my jacket. Splatters of goo decorated it. If I hadn’t been wearing it, I’d probably be dead. I jammed it into someone’s trashcan.

The calls for a mop were loud as I dug a vial of saltwater out of my bag. My fingers were burning and my neck was in agony. Hands shaking, I bit off the tube’s plastic top. Breath held, I dumped the vial across my fingers and then my bowed neck. My breath hissed out at the sudden sting and whiff of sulfur as the black spell broke. Saltwater dripped from me to the floor. I spent one glorious moment relishing the cessation of pain.

Shaking, I dabbed at my neck with the hem of my sleeve. The blister under my careful fingers hurt, but the throb from the saltwater was soothing compared to the burn. I stayed where I was, feeling like an idiot as I tried to figure out how I was going to get out of there. I was a good witch. All my charms were defensive, not offensive. Slap ’em up and keep them off their feet until you subdue them was the name of the game. I’d always been the hunter, never the hunted. My brow furrowed as I realized I had nothing for this.

Megan’s overloud fussing told me exactly where everyone was. I felt my blister again. It wasn’t spreading. I was lucky. My breath caught at the soft pacing a few cubicles over. I wished I wasn’t sweating so much. Weres have excellent noses, but one-track minds. It was probably only the lingering scent of sulfur that had kept him from finding me already. I couldn’t stay here. A faint pounding on the back door told me it was time to go.