Elemental Unity

by Maddy Edwards

  I swallowed. “No,” I said.

  “I have always found you fascinating, Ricky Rollins,” she breathed. “For what you took on and what you didn’t. The side of the elementals is the winning side. There are just too few of you to be bought off.”

  “You would go against your family?’ I asked.

  “My family’s loyalty is confusing. I do not believe that Lanca would ever go against Charlotte. Besides, she is only one ember, and the fire is growing larger,” said Averett.

  Implying that there were any number of vampires who sided with Lisabelle Verlans. Interesting.

  Darkness creatures slammed into the air. In fact, I thought they were some of her dragons. I reminded myself that Lisabelle had several. I felt as if they saw something of themselves in her. That dragon heart.

  As the powerful beasts took to the air, the Hunters suddenly revealed flying creatures of their own: nasty birds with vicious claws, almost as large as the dragons.

  Then it dawned on me. This wasn’t a retrieval mission to fetch the object, it had been intended from the beginning as an ambush and execution of Lisabelle.

  “You should go,” I told Averett.

  “No way am I running,” she said.

  A blast of power came from one of the Hunters. Averett ducked. Just in time I raised an elemental shield.

  Darkness was consumed by essence. The blast slammed me backwards and I nearly stumbled. Averett screamed at my feet.

  “Are you all right?” I asked her. My shield slowly dissipated back into the cool night air.

  She looked up at me with wide, shocked eyes.

  “I think so,” she breathed.

  We both turned to look at Lisabelle. She was holding one side of the onslaught but not the other. The addition of monstrous creatures was not something she had bargained for.

  Her left flank was exposed. Blasts of power kept driving her back toward the thicket of trees. I could see her turn her head, checking on us to make sure we were all right.

  The time was costing her.

  The distraction was dangerous.

  “We need help,” I told Averett urgently. “Go get help. Find Trafton or Rake. Keegan and Eighellie shouldn’t be far from here either. Lisabelle can’t hold this alone.”

  “You find help,” she shot back at me.

  “No. I’m elemental. I’m going to help Lisabelle and make them regret ever coming to this forest,” I said.

  Underneath our feet the ground trembled.

  Slowly Averett’s facial expression changed.

  She believed me.

  “I’ll be back soon,” she said, clapping me on the shoulder.

  The Hunters and their monsters were closing in around us, their ranks lengthening as Averett readied herself to leave. All this time she had been floating off the ground, now she lowered her head as if to charge.

  “Do you need help?” I yelled.

  The noise had become deafening.

  She ignored me, lowered her head even further, and charged into a knot of Hunters converging on our backs.

  I wanted to stay and watch her. A huge part of me wanted to make sure she was okay.

  But she could take care of herself, and I had more pressing work to do.

  I turned and faced the monsters.

  Between me and them stood my sister’s best friend, a line of black against more darkness.

  I stepped up next to Lisabelle.

  “Get out of here,” she yelled, without even looking in my direction.

  “Nope,” I said.

  “Charlotte won’t forgive me,” she said, almost so quietly I didn’t hear.

  “She won’t forgive me if I leave,” I said. For a split second Charlotte stretched between us, there even though she wasn’t.

  “Fine. Just don’t get killed,” Lisabelle said.

  I lifted my hand and a wind tunnel started whipping around me. Suddenly, it was a stormy and blustery evening, the perfect night to give Averett a boost to get away.

  My ring was singing. Magic was everywhere in me. Essence and fire were going to burst from every part of me.

  I closed my eyes.

  Monsters closed in.

  I released the power from inside.

  Essence blasted out of me, exploding like a million stars falling.

  Power slammed into the monsters that were coming for me. I saw even Lisabelle take a step away. The Hunters paused. None of their artifacts could quite handle this. It would take something more special, like the Counter Wheel itself. And I didn’t think they had that yet.

  The Hunters might have been arming themselves for months, if not years, but there was nothing they could do against me.

  After essence came fire.

  I shot it at every Hunter and monster I saw. Many Hunters were retreating, leaving the monsters to fight their battles for them.

  For a few minutes I lost track of what was the night sky and what were the attackers. I blindly fired as the waves of monsters came on, a nightmare filled with despair and death come to life in front of us.

  Near me, Lisabelle battled, protecting my right side as I protected her left.

  With my reinforcements she was holding the monsters at bay.

  Still, we needed more help.

  Averett was long gone. Either she got away or . . . I wasn’t even going to think about that.

  Chapter Thirty

  Blindly, I fought and fought. The Hunters were being driven back. Not defeated, but losing. As they faded into the darkness, their monsters fought and died. Some ran, others did not.

  A few Hunters tried to buy their friends time.

  That was a mistake.

  Lisabelle shot after them, never quite leaving the clearing. My essence chased several down, but I reined it back in before I was lured too far away from Lisabelle.

  A curl of darkness twisted into visibility as Lisabelle floated forward, masked in shadow and fury. The man cowering in front of her tried to push himself against a tree, but there was nowhere for him to go.

  Breathless, I watched.

  The cold black night echoed with the man’s whimpers and sobs. He threw back his hood. His shabby clothing was covered in filth. Tears streaked his grimy face. All his troubles paled in comparison to death incarnate, the woman who stood before him.

  She bent down and wrapped one tattooed arm around his neck. She lifted her arm, and him along with it, and he gave a cry.

  Only her profile was visible to me. Cold, icy, unending rage. Eyes that murmured, sputtered, and sparked notions of torture.

  Forgiveness had left this place. Forgiveness had run away to hide.

  “Where is she?” Lisabelle asked, her voice a whispered brush against every living thing around him. The world shuddered.

  Who?

  For a split second pity flashed through me. Not for the man Lisabelle was about to kill. No, for Lisabelle herself. She would never hear deer in the forest or a bunny hopping over brush. Those creatures scattered at the mere whisper of the darkness queen.

  A soft chuckle sent icy shivers down my spine. In spite of myself I said, “Can you read his mind?”

  “No, but his face talks loudly enough. At the moment it’s saying, how can I get out of this?”

  Lisabelle leaned forward into the man’s face, a cruel smile curling her lip. “Isn’t it?”

  The man just made a burbling sound.

  “How can he?” I asked.

  “He can tell me what I want to know, but realize this. No one has ever gotten out of this before. If he tells me enough, I might feel charitable,” she said.

  There was no hint on her face to offer a clue as to whether she meant what she said. The man wanted both to drink her in and to flinch away from her. He would search for any sign of himself, and close his eyes and cry that there was none.

  “I see you’re cocky,” said a male voice.

  Lisabelle stilled. She knew that voice, recognized that man.

  He remained in shadow. I looked to Lisabe
lle to see if he was a threat.

  “I prefer to be realistic,” she murmured, her eyes never leaving her captive. “He’s about to die.”

  “He’s expendable.” Again that lilting voice. “He served his purpose.”

  Horveth stepped back into the clearing. He was taller than I remembered, with black facial hair perfectly groomed and black eyes looking at Lisabelle as if he’d never seen anything more beautiful. He looked tousled from the battle.

  Lisabelle couldn’t deal with her captive and talk at the same time. When she’d finished with the whimpering vampire, she glanced back to the spot where the shadow had been. He was gone.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

  Lisabelle was about to say something when she closed her eyes. If it had been anyone else, I would have thought fear splintered across her pale face.

  “Not even close.”

  The next moment the world around us exploded.

  We couldn’t fight off everything. The Hunters had been prepared. They had obviously planned meticulously for this encounter.

  They had planned for Lisabelle.

  As it turned out, some of that plan had worked.

  Power just kept spilling forward. Over and over again we fought it off, but more came.

  The Hunters had far more artifacts to amplify their power than we had realized. Just as bad, there were more Hunters than I had thought.

  Breathless, I felt my power keep flowing outward, but I couldn’t keep it up much longer.

  Frantically, I looked around for help.

  Then Lisabelle’s eyes went dull. There was too much darkness. She was about to do something that she had hardly ever done before.

  She was about to fail.

  Frantically, I searched for something I could use to help her.

  “You have to let something go,” I yelled at her.

  She had already come to Public once to battle for us. The battle was here now, and nowhere else. Charlotte was too well hidden for either the paranormals or the Hunters to go after her. The artifacts were hidden but findable. Some had already been found.

  She stared at me. “Do you have any idea what happens if I let the remaining demons go?”

  “I know what will happen if you don’t,” I told her.

  She swallowed hard. She knew I wasn’t wrong. She also knew that after she did it there was no going back.

  She nodded once and closed her eyes. The tattoos dancing on her skin slowed. The hellhounds looked at her and the demons slowly came forward.

  Wave upon wave of dark power crashed around us. Anything with even a little bit of that sort of magic cringed. The air was charged to the point that it became excruciating. I felt my magic, and with it a pressing darkness. I was certain that at any moment my ring would shatter. I had no idea what was going to happen to next. She still stood in the midst of it all, magic all around her. Power everywhere. And the demons slowly becoming free.

  Maybe this had been the Hunters’ plan all along, to make certain that Lisabelle could not fight on all of these fronts at once. Even her magic could only stretch so thin. And now it had reached its breaking point.

  Just when I thought I wouldn’t be able to stand the pressure any longer, dark stars exploded around me, throwing me backward. I landed hard, but at least I avoided crashing onto a tree.

  The last thing I remembered before I sank into unconsciousness was a vision of the Demons of Knight streaming around me in endless long lines.

  Free of their tether, free of their premier.

  We were all now in a deadly game.

  Which my side was losing.

  I struggled to my feet. Lisabelle was on the ground in a graceful heap of black leather. Kneeling next to her was a blond-headed man: Trafton. He spared me one sharp glance as she stirred. For once his relaxed features were tight.

  He looked afraid. “Someone catch him,” he said to me.

  Then I realized he wasn’t speaking to me, he was speaking about me. Strong arms wrapped around me as my knees buckled once again.

  Keegan said in my ear, “What the hell’s going on!”

  I tried to nod my head, but dizziness overtook me. All I could manage to do was ask how Lisabelle was doing.

  “I think she’s seen better days. Hopefully Trafton will take care of her,” said Keegan.

  Trafton was now lifting the darkness premier in his strong arms. In the distance we could hear shouts, signaling that the paranormal police were coming. We couldn’t stick around and have President Yeast’s forces try to arrest Lisabelle.

  If there had been explosions before, there would certainly be more if that happened.

  I had a feeling that even in her weakened state Lisabelle would manage to wake up and fight.

  As I looked around I noticed that some of the others had arrived to help as well. Eighellie wasn’t far away. She was looking on and chewing her lip, terribly concerned. “Get back to the dorm. They won’t come searching for you there. I think they know better,” she said.

  “I’m amazed that you still believe that,” said Keegan.

  “Where’s Ostelle?” I asked. I would have thought she’d have come as well.

  “I don’t know. It’s probably best that she not be around for all of this darkness,” said Eighellie.

  “You can say that again. I think it would have been better if none of us had been around for all this darkness,” I said.

  Keegan helped me away, but it was slow going. My legs didn’t want to work, so I had to be half carried. We were moving in a direction away from the yells, so hopefully we’d get out of range before they reached the spot where Lisabelle had just released countless demons back into the world.

  I hadn’t thought until now about the fact that she’d been holding onto the demons that were left alive, that she was keeping them from doing more damage or fighting against the paranormals.

  The demons couldn’t have liked the short leash. It must have been exhausting for her every moment, and yet she had done it. Okay, she had done it with an evil smile on her face. But at this point hat was the only way I imagined her smiling.

  Still, I remembered that dark dance with the dream giver at the castle in my dream, a smile on her lips that I had never seen before, a smile just for him. It made me uncomfortable even thinking about it, let alone what witnessing it had been like.

  “What about Averett?” I asked.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Keegan shake his head. “No idea where she is. The vampires were getting restless and unpleasant. I have a feeling they know better than anyone what just happened here, and her cousin also knows. I have a feeling it isn’t going to be good.”

  “We all have that feeling. It doesn’t take somebody who has extra special feelings to sense all of that,” said Eighellie irritably. There were dark smudges under her eyes; it was now the middle of the night, after all.

  “I just hope the vampires are out of the way of the demons for now,” I said.

  “I don’t think any of us are out of their way,” said Eighellie, looking troubled.

  We were just making our way over the grass towards the dorm. My legs were starting to work a little better, but my head was pounding. I needed to lie down and I needed something to eat. I wasn’t certain which was the more pressingly urgent need.

  There were no students anywhere. The order to stay inside must have been followed. They must have felt the explosion even here, and wondered what it was. What it was, was darkness rocketing back into the paranormal world. It wasn’t as if the past few years had been great, but still.

  Problems were getting worse, not better. At this rate we would be going to war again soon, on any number of fronts.

  I couldn’t wait to shower and collapse, so the moment the five-towered building that was my dorm came into view I felt intense relief.

  Home: still standing, waiting for me.

  Eighellie turned around and looked behind her. “You should go a bit faster. There are pixies
following us,” she said.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Sure enough, a group of pixies was behind us, keeping a bit of distance but clearly trailing us on purpose. Hannah was among them, watching us as if we had stolen her favorite pair of shoes. To be fair, I wouldn’t put it past Keegan to do just that, then throw them high into a tree. But we had better things to do tonight.

  Keegan wrapped his arm tightly around my rib cage and hauled me forward. My ribs felt crushed and I gasped.

  “Okay. Now they’re running,” and Eighellie calmly.

  She grabbed my other arm and tried to help drag me forward all the faster. The three of us raced to get into the safety of the dorm’s protective net. The second we were on the line, I felt the elemental force field snap into place.

  Astra would protect me. I was home, and that’s all the dorm cared about. I spared one more glance over my shoulder. Hannah and the other pixies had realized that there was a force field around me now, because they’d been abruptly stopped right at the boundary. But they didn’t leave; they just stood there, watching me with cold eyes.

  I saw that threatening spark, the promise that they weren’t done with me. Well, I wasn’t done with them, either.

  To my surprise, the front door of the dorm didn’t open as we approached. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but I’d been hoping that Ostelle would appear and say hello, maybe ask me how I was doing, maybe nurse me back to health. Okay, she was the darkness mage who had better things to do. Still, I would have nursed her back to health if necessary.

  “Strange,” said Eighellie, opening the front door. I followed her and Keegan inside, grateful when the tree sprite let go of the crushing grip he’d had on my rib cage.

  I nearly slumped to the floor without the support, but regained some of my footing just in time.

  “Should we head into the kitchen?” Keegan asked, already walking that way.

  “Sure. Maybe that’s where Ostelle is,” said Eighellie. “Maybe she thought we’d need to eat when we got back so she went to prepare some food or something.”

  “We do need to eat,” I said.

  My stomach was grumbling. It had been a long time since I’d eaten anything. As we struggled down the hall, I wondered how Trafton and Lisabelle were making out. With any luck they were far away from Public by now.