by H G Lynch
Still, her first hope held a little more possibility. She dropped to her knees and clasped her hands together, praying. She didn’t dare say the words out-loud, but she suspected Raz would hear her thoughts, if he could hear her outside this place at all. Raphael! Raz! I need your help! The Society has us all caged up and they’ve got magic cuffs that stop my magic. I can’t get out of here, I can’t fight them, and if try, they’ll hurt Reid. Please, help!
The professor snickered outside her cage and she raised her head slowly to glower at him. “What’s so damn funny?” she hissed.
Professor Oliver sighed. “If you’re trying to contact your angel friend, I’m sorry to tell you it’s no use. Even if he can hear you, there’s no way he can get into this building. It’s protected with the same Enochian runes that prevented him from entering Rachel Mooring’s house.”
Runes again.
She was starting to really hate runes, alongside the friggin’ witches. Panic started to set in and she took a deep breath, trying to ease the sick roiling of her stomach and the frantic pace of her heart.
“Now then, Ember, I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to answer them for me. Otherwise, your boyfriend over there—”
The professor tilted his head toward Reid’s cage, and Ember’s eyes went instantly to her beaten, unconscious boyfriend. A sob rose in her throat and she swallowed it; She wasn’t going to show weakness. She might feel it, but she wouldn’t show it. No way.
“He’ll pay the price for your disobedience,” Professor Oliver finished, and two guards moved to Reid’s cage, unlocking it and slipping inside, closing the gate behind them. They both unsheathed knives, and she could see the dark wood of a stake on each of their belts. They also had little bottles of what looked to be ordinary pepper spray, but what was inside was most definitely the vampire equivalent.
Ember nodded slowly, taking her eyes off Reid and the guards to stare at the professor. With his styled grey hair and smart little glasses, his pristine suit and leather loafers, he looked like any normal teaching professor anywhere. But the mad glint in his cold eyes gave him away as something entirely different.
“First question, Ember. Simple enough. How long have you been an Elemental?” Professor Oliver asked.
It took her churning mind a moment to come up with the answer. “Th-Three months.” Only three months. Yet, the only time she could really remember what it felt like to be human was in her nightmares.
The professor nodded, apparently accepting her answer. “Next question. Do you know of any other Elementals?” The professor’s eyes gleamed with curiosity.
Ember gulped, thinking of Cris. She couldn’t tell him about Cris. She’d be putting Cris in danger. She wouldn’t put any more of her friends in harm’s way.
“No. I’m the only one…as far I know, anyway,” she lied, holding the professor’s icy gaze.
The professor’s eyes narrowed and he stared at her intently, looking for a sign she wasn’t telling him the whole truth. She stubbornly kept her face blank, even as her heart lodged in her throat.
Eventually, the professor nodded slowly. “Next. How far does your power extend? What are your abilities and what is the furthest distance they work from?”
Ember hesitated. She could risk lying again and get back the advantage of having the professor underestimate her. But if she got caught, if he called out her lie…what the guards would do to Reid…
“Um, I can compel people, but not permanently. It doesn’t hold.” True enough, as far as she’d tested it. Her mother’s compulsion had come undone after just a few months. “I can levitate objects, move them, but it hurts my head if I try to do too much. I can create fire and shape it into orbs and…into animals. I can set people on fire from at least twenty feet away, but I haven’t tested it from further than that.” There. All her cards on the table. The only thing she’d left out was her newest ability to shoot lightning-fire when she was in serious danger. She was hoping that one would go away after all of this. She didn’t like it because she couldn’t control it. It messed with her temper, too.
“And what about that flash of fire I saw the other night? It was an impressive beam. Was that the same thing you used to kill Rachel Moorings?” Professor Oliver enquired calmly, but she could see the burning in his eyes.
“I-I can’t control it. It’s new. I don’t know how it works. When…when Rachel Moorings attacked me, the fire…it just happened,” she stuttered. Except, Rachel Moorings hadn’t been attacking her; she’d been attacking Reid, and Ember had thrown herself in the way. Proving, yet again, she’d do anything to keep Reid safe. Even risk her own life.
“Hmm. I see. You realise that the amount of power you have is unheard of in history? Most Elementals have just enough power to compel people for short periods of time and sometimes throw orbs of their element of choice. They have to absorb a lot of energy from their element to do it. But you…you can do things other Elementals can only dream of. It’s incredible.”
She’d already known that. Cris had told her before, and with her newest lightning-fire thing, she’d kind of guessed she had insane amounts of power. And she didn’t want to accept what the professor had said as compliment, so she merely stared at him blankly.
He frowned, but moved on. “Okay. Next question. Are you physically pure? Virtuous?”
It took Ember a very long moment to realise what he meant, and a maelstrom of sickness and anger welled up inside her. Her fangs sprang free again, cutting her lip, and she felt her stomach turn over. “What the fuck kind of question is that? It’s none of your goddamned business!” she spat, bile rising in her throat.
“It is an important question. We must know the state of your soul because it affects the state of your blood. If you lie, our potions may not work, and then we’ll have to start over. It will mean more time and pain for you, and a lot more pain for your friends,” the professor answered easily, and Ember snarled at him, unable to resist her fury at his threats.
Sighing, the professor turned and nodded to the guards in Reid’s cage. Ember’s heart jerked and she struggled to swallow the helpless disgust and horror trying to choke her. The guards took their knives and each began carving long, deep gashes on Reid’s already-torn chest. Even in unconsciousness, Reid groaned in pain and spasmed away from the knives. Ember squeezed her eyes closed, pressing her lips together to hold back a scream, her hand rising to clutch desperately at her necklace. But then, one of the guards must’ve done something particularly awful, because it made Reid gasp awake, and he screamed in agony. That sound was going to be burned into her memory for as long as she lived, she was sure of it. She clamped her hands over her ears, nails digging into her skull.
“Stop it! Stop it, now! I’ll answer your question! Please, stop hurting him!” she gasped, feeling hot tears running down her face.
Reid stopped screaming, but he was still wheezing and choking in pain.
“Alright then,” Professor Oliver said plainly, clearly completely unaffected by the agonised screams of an innocent teenage boy.
And he thinks we’re the monsters, Ember thought despairingly.
“No. I’m-I’m not…pure.” Blood rushed to her face in a burning blush despite herself, and she hung her head, letting her hair create a curtain so nobody would see. Her skin crawled at divulging such a personal detail to these beasts.
“As I suspected. Our potions should be effective then,” the professor commented emotionlessly.
But Reid had heard him and, despite the guards still holding knives over him, he yelled. “As you suspected? Did you just seriously imply Ember’s a slut? You stupid, sickening, fucking bastard! Don’t you dare talk about her like that! I’ll fucking—” His enraged tirade was cut off as one guard took a bottle of that pepper spray from his belt and sprayed it at Reid. Whatever it was, it was nasty, because Reid hissed and snarled, raising his hands to cover his face. Steam curled from his skin as the liquid hit, sizzling and burning like acid.
Ember whimpered, the firefly pendant biting into her fingers. The professor noticed and gestured for the guards to stop what they were doing. Reid fell back on the stone floor, panting, fresh blood streaming from his new cuts and burns. He hardly looked like a person anymore, Ember could barely recognise him. He looked like the victim of a brutally violent, passionate murder. If he’d been human, he would have been dead by now.
“What is that?” the professor asked, indicating Ember’s necklace.
Slowly, she uncurled her fingers from it. “Just a necklace,” she said quietly, her voice weak and shaky.
The professor beckoned her closer and examined the necklace through the bars. Then he met her eyes with clinical interest. “May I see it?” he asked politely.
Ember understood it wasn’t really a question, he wasn’t really giving her a choice, so she unclasped the necklace and handed it through the bars to him. But the instant it touched his hand, he hissed in pain and dropped it to the ground. Ember gasped. The sapphire stone of the pendant was glowing. Glowing like a real firefly, bright and blue and somehow dangerous-looking. A warning.
The professor glared up at Ember, kneeling by the necklace and cradling his burnt hand. She shook her head. “It’s never done that before. I swear,” she whimpered, fearing that he might have Reid hurt again if he thought she’d done that on purpose.
Professor Oliver looked back down at the necklace and picked up a set of metal tongs from the metal table, the kind she’d often used in Chemistry when they worked with Bunsen burners. He used the tongs to pick up the necklace, and laid it out on the metal desk, leaning close to peer at it. He pushed his spectacles down and made a strange noise, then turned back to face Ember with an unreadable expression. “Where did you get this?” he asked sharply.
Ember swallowed, and her eyes strayed for a second to Reid. The professor saw, and followed her gaze, then smirked. “Ah. Of course. A gift from your beloved Reid. I’ll bet he didn’t tell you what this necklace does though, did he?” It sounded an awful lot like the professor was amused again, and Ember wanted to kick his teeth in.
When she just stared at him blankly, he continued. “This necklace is charmed. It’s designed to hold small amounts of your power, and also, it burns, well, anyone but you and your boyfriend I’m assuming. It’s really quite incredible. This is a strong charm. It must’ve been performed by either a powerful witch or…or another elemental…”
Uh oh. Ember could see gears turning in the professor’s head. Cris, she thought, Reid had Cris charm the necklace. Why didn’t he tell me?
“And seeing as witches aren’t too fond of vampires —your boyfriend in particular, I hear, is a major target. Pissed off a lot of witches — I suspect you have lied to me, dear Ember. Surely if Reid knows of another Elemental, you do too.”
Oh, shit. She knew her face was giving away the answer, and tried to school her features back to cluelessness, but it was too late. The professor looked extremely unhappy that she’d lied to him. His composed teaching professor persona vanished, and she saw, briefly, what was underneath. She didn’t like what she saw, cringed back in her cage. “That’s what I thought. You shouldn’t have lied to me, Ember. That was a stupid mistake.” Professor Oliver growled in a low, dark voice, his eyes turning to pools of swirling, frigid grey water.
“I’m sorry. I just—” She didn’t get to say anything more.
The professor turned to the guards in Reid’s cage and commanded them. “Teach our little liar here what it means to lie to The Society.”
Ember gasped, lunged at the bars, grabbing them and yanking on them, her hands burning, skin sizzling and charring. She didn’t care. She couldn’t listen to Reid scream again, she couldn’t. It would drive her mad. But it was already happening. The guards took out their stakes. One guard stabbed his stake brutally through Reid’s thigh, and Reid roared in agony, arching up and clutching at his leg as blood spilled out, soaking his torn jeans. The other was more creative, using the tip of his stake to write a gruesome, bloody message on Reid’s chest, just under his collarbone where the skin was less wrecked already. Just one word, he wrote: Liar.
Ember didn’t even realise she was screaming and thrashing and fighting with the unbreakable bars until Reid finally stopped yelling and passed out. She was almost grateful. At least if he was unconscious he couldn’t feel the pain so much…she hoped. She was crying uncontrollably, but her screams had finally woken her other friends. She saw Ricky stir, lifting his head. He sat up slowly, carefully, and looked around. His eyes widened as he took in the scene; the cages, the professor, the guards, Sherry lying unconscious, Reid torn to shreds, and finally, Ember, with bloody hands and sobbing brokenly in terror.
Instantly, Ricky was on his feet and his fingers closed around the bars of his cage. He yelled and jumped back as the bars burned him, smoke rising from his burnt skin. The bars apparently had more effect on full vampires than they had on her. It made Ember wonder, just briefly and distantly, what effect they’d have on Sherry, who had only a tiny amount of vampire blood in her, not nearly as much as Ember.
“Ember? Ember, what’s going on?” Ricky asked quietly, his glare fixed firmly on the professor.
Ember sniffled through her tears and whimpered. “The bars are charmed. You can’t get out. The runes burn, but the charm stops compulsion,” she said, answering the question he’d really been asking. It was kind of obvious what was going on.
“Sherry?” he asked sharply, his voice strained. He kept his eyes on the professor, who was watching them conversing with a slight curve to his thin mouth.
“Just unconscious,” Ember answered quietly.
“Reid?” Ricky’s voice cracked, and his eyes finally trailed to his broken, bloody friend in the next cage.
Ember couldn’t answer. Her mouth was trembling, and more tears spilled down her face. She knew her expression said it all. Ricky sucked in a painful breath and swallowed, closing his eyes for a long moment. Ember waited for him to digest it all, listening to the harsh rasp of her own breathing.
Finally, Ricky opened his eyes though, and they were paled by pain. “And you?” he asked softly, in his typical gentle, caring manner.
Ember nodded. “I-I’m still alive. Aside from some burns from the bars, and the manacles, I’m…not hurt.” Not physically, at least. She knew Ricky picked up on the thought without her projecting it. She was sure it was written in her eyes. Ricky nodded and turned his eyes back to the professor, the warm, liquid green-blue colour turning to solid, glittering metal. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. You could feel his hatred from six miles away, let alone six feet.
Then Sherry stirred, and her first trembling words were, “Ember? Where are we?” The girl sounded terrified and confused, and more than a little lost. Ember’s heart gave a jolt and she tried to wipe away her tears. She couldn’t let Sherry see her like this; it would only scare her more.
“We’re inside The Society’s base. Don’t touch the bars. They’ll burn you. It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay,” Ember murmured soothingly to her friend, but her voice wavered, and Sherry pushed her hair off her face to look at her. Ember saw the look in Sherry’s eyes when she realised what was happening, when she saw Ricky and Reid and Ember in cages, the state they were all in.
Looking away, Ember choked back more tears. “Don’t worry, Sherz. We’ll get out of this. We always do.” Ember knew Sherry didn’t believe her lies, but, to her credit, the green-eyed girl just nodded and curled herself into a ball, her chains clinking.
“Well, now that everybody’s awake…” the professor said, grinning, then looked to Reid’s cage and frowned, “well, almost everyone. I think we can get on with what we’re here to do.”
Ember, her heart kicking into frantic overdrive, tried to stall for time. Time to do what, she wasn’t sure, but she had to try anyway. “What exactly is it you want to do? I mean, you offered to let me join you, but you never told me exactly what you plan
to do with my blood,” she said weakly, but it made the professor pause.
He looked at her with his head tilted for a long moment, and then said, “No, I suppose I didn’t. Well, I plan on using your blood to create an army of powerful elementals. I’ll turn weak, pathetic humans into unbeatable creations. They’ll be incredible. And I’ll control them all, because I’ll also have an army of highly-trained, semi-humans armed with the kind of weaponry you’ve already seen.” His cold, grey eyes flicked to Reid then back to her, and she swallowed bile. “I’ve tried injecting the two parts of Elemental blood into ordinary humans, but each time, the witch blood and vampire blood either cancelled each other out, or they boiled up against each other and killed the poor soul. I did manage to capture one other Elemental, but he was very weak. A Water-Soul. Just barely enough power to create an orb of water. Pathetic really. But I injected his blood into a few humans. Unfortunately, it had very little effect. After several days, they simply dropped dead from exertion, trying to force power from the diluted blood. But you, my dear, you have real power. If I inject your blood into a human, that human will become amazingly strong, will be capable of incinerating a person from fifteen feet. Brilliant. It will be a new, better race, under my control. All of Britain will join me!” Professor Oliver laughed clapping gleefully.
Ember, who had listened to his whole speech with a growing shock and growing amusement, got to her feet and said, with utter conviction, “You’re insane.”
The professor looked at her and frowned. “And you are not? Do we even know what sane really is?”
Ah. Yeah. Now she could really see it. The guy was a basket case, putting on a good, sane face around the public. Great. Lunatics were both more dangerous and easier to take out. It just took some really conniving thinking. She could do that.
“Okay. Let’s begin. First, we need to move you out of that cage,” the professor said, motioning to some of the guards standing by the door. They filed forward and the professor unlocked her cage. Ember tried not to grin, knowing that the second they unlocked her cuffs and collar, she could watch them all go up in flames. But, of course, it wasn’t that easy. The first guard to reach her had one of those damned hypodermic needles, and with nowhere to go and very little she could do to fight him off, Ember got another injection of weird, knock-out potion. Fabulous.