And with that scant warning, the earth rose up in revolt.
A terrible rumbling that made her stomach churn and her knees go to water began in the distance, and as she looked instinctively towards the sound, impossible as it seemed, she actually saw the earthquake approaching.
The whole street was rising, like an ocean wave, and more waves followed behind it. The street billowed as if it was a rug and a housewife was vigorously shaking it. As it billowed, buildings swayed and began to shake apart.
For some reason she herself could not have afterwards explained, she ran into the nearest hotel doorway, which was a small side-entrance that was almost certainly locked to the outside, and reached that spot just as the first wave struck.
She braced herself in the doorway with her hands and legs as the earth began an insane gigue. Around her, up and down Market Street, walls, chimneys, and entire buildings were toppling. Church bells rang with cacophonous fury, as if an enormous child had grasped each tower in its fist and was shaking it. Under the ringing of the bells, the earth roared defiance so deafening that Rose could not even hear herself screaming, although her mouth was open and she felt herself to be howling in fear. The cornices of buildings about her fell to the ground in a deadly hail of masonry; chimneys collapsed with killing force, crashing down into their own buildings or the ones next to them. There were no words for the terror that filled her; anything she had experienced before this was as nothing. There was only mind-numbing fear, and the sound of Judgment Day.
Then, finally, it all stopped.
She took a breath; another. She dared to think that it was over.
It began again.
She honestly thought, as the second quake struck, that she was going to die of fright.
Finally, after an eternity almost as long as the first quake, it was truly over. There were several small pulses, diminishing in strength, then-quiet. A hush as deathly as the roar had been settled over the street.
Then the screaming began.
The quake bucked and kicked like an untamed stallion, but Cameron's home and grounds had been made as safe as Pao's Earth Magick could make them, as Pao's home in China-town had been made as fire-resistant as a Firemaster could guarantee. All over the house, furniture and ornaments crashed to the floor in a paroxysm of destruction, but the house itself remained intact. With the sure instinct of one who had ridden out smaller quakes, Cameron dived beneath his desk, a sturdy piece of furniture that would shelter him if any of the rest of his possessions or parts of the ceiling came crashing down upon him.
The huge mirror flung itself from the wall and hurled itself at the desk just after he dove beneath it, shattering into a thousand splinters. Out in the stable, Sunset and Brownie screamed their terror, but they were safer than he was. There was no furniture in the stable to come hurtling at them.
There was a pause of about ten seconds, then the second quake hit, shaking the house with the fury of a dog killing a rat. If anything, the second quake was worse than the first.
Then, after an interlude of terror too long to be time, it was over.
Cameron had only a single thought, and it was for Rose. If she had, in her fear, run out into the street, she was now almost certainly crushed beneath tons of brick and masonry!
But he looked out from beneath the sheltering bulk of the desk, to see small fires everywhere there had been lamps or candles, and he put that thought aside for the few seconds it took to summon his Salamanders and send them all over the house and grounds, extinguishing flames wherever they found them.
Then he snatched up a shard of mirror, cutting his hand a little, and breathed his Magick on it.
He was just in time to see her getting slowly to her feet, sheltered in precisely the correct place, a sturdy servants' entrance to the hotel, her black clothing now grey with the dust that choked the air. The mirror was too small to give him much of a view, but she cocked her head to one side, then hiked her skirts up to her knee and began to run shakily up Market toward Third.
At that moment, he knew one thing, and one thing only.
It did not matter what he was, or who saw him. It did not matter what she thought of him, or about him. He had to get to her, if he died trying. And there was one way-on a horse that would not tire, would not stop, and would run faster than poor Sunset ever dreamed of doing. It would take his every resource, and would even require his own blood, but he could reach her within the hour. He had done this before, and it had left him with little in the way of resources, but it was his only hope.
