Hungry Earth (Elemental Book 2)

by Oxford, Rain

  One of the guys raised his hand. “How do you feel about rule-breaking?”

  “It’s your funeral.” We went outside to the grassy field and he told us to pick our fighters.

  The water group formed a circle instantly. “I had Professor Aros as my mentor in water,” the only woman in our group started. “She’s a peacekeeper. Who was taught to fight with water?”

  The guy on my right shrugged. “I had Professor Hans and he died, so I passed by default. I know shit about water. Who did you have?” he asked me.

  “Remington Hunt.” I saw it in their eyes the moment I said it that they were all unanimously voting me in. I sighed. “At least it’s earth we’re up against.” I’d hate to make steam again. Fortunately, the practice field was only a hundred or so feet from the lake, because pulling a few drops of water out of the air was not that impressive.

  I waited as one man in the fire group and another from the air group separated and made their way to the middle of the field. “Whenever you’re ready,” Watson said. “Also, be polite and introduce yourselves.”

  The air student bowed slightly. “I’m Lenard, everyone calls me Len, and my air mentor was Professor Hyatt.” Above him, the clouds began to stir angrily.

  The fire student pulled a thick object from the pocket of his jacket. “I’m Dan, and my mentor was Professor Nightshade.” There were several gasps. Dan waved what looked like a small flashlight in a large, clockwise rotation in front of him. When sparks flared from one end, he held it above his head in a lassoing movement. The spark turned into a damn ten-foot long whip made of what appeared to be burning rope.

  Len waved his hand at Dan and a thin tornado came down from the sky. Dan dived and rolled in time to avoid the twister that hit the ground where he had been a second before. When he got too close to the earth group, a wall of dirt and rocks shot out of the ground to block him.

  Dan ran towards Len and darted to the right to avoid the tornado. He struck out with his whip and lashed Len across the stomach. Len directed the wind tunnel in between them. Dan must have had a plan, because he immediately struck at the tornado with his whip. The fire melded with the wind and it became a tornado of fire.

  They were quick to adapt. Dan dropped his handle and they both put up their hands with visible concentration on their faces. Either one of them could distinguish their own magic and cause the entire thing to fall, but together, they had one fantastic spectacle. There was a silent agreement between them, which we could all see on their faces, that working together was to their mutual advantage.

  “Very good,” Professor Watson said.

  Dan and Len lowered their hands, letting their magic wither and die. Dan picked up his whip handle and returned to his group.

  “Next up is earth and water.”

  I went forth, seeing no point in arguing. From those who had mastered earth, a small woman approached me on the field. I opened my mouth, paused, thought better of it, and shut it. If her group voted her as their best fighter, I wasn’t going to insult her for being a woman. She was a very pretty Indian woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a knee-length black dress with netted sleeves.

  Since it was about forty-five degrees out, I didn’t think that was reasonable, but it wasn’t my business either. “I’m Devon and my elemental mentor last year was Ms. Hunt.”

  “I’m Anika. I was trained by Professor Langril,” she said with no accent at all.

  “He’s my mentor this year. Is he any good?”

  “He is completely insane, but yes; he is very good at teaching the earth element.” She flicked her hand in an upwards motion and a shield of rock and dirt shot from the ground between us.

  It was a defensive movement, not an attack, so my instincts didn’t warn me of danger. Once again, I focused on the essence and fluidity of water. No anger, no heat, just control the water. I imagined water flowing out of the lake and crashing over her barrier like a tsunami.

  Nothing happened.

  The wall of earth burst outward. I couldn’t have gotten out of the way before the rocks and dirt struck me, so instead I reached out with my power to wrap around her mind. At the same time, Vincent’s book and the words in it flashed across my memory. “Stop,” I said. It wasn’t a yell or a cry but a demand, which she instantly obeyed.

  Like in a paused movie, the onslaught of rocks and dirt froze midair. She promptly released her power over earth and let it fall harmlessly around me. “What did you do?” she asked. The fear in her voice and expression was clear enough that I would have felt sorry for her if she hadn’t just attacked me with rocks.

  “You’ll be fine,” I said, because I really didn’t want to explain. While I had always been able to communicate with animals, the discovery that I could actually control people was unsettling to say the least.

  “Well, I think we’ve had an exciting start to the semester, but let’s call it a day,” Watson said. He began herding students away from the practice field. “Mr. Sanders,” he called before I was out of earshot. I turned back, not really surprised he knew my last name. “Don’t let your group vote you into dueling again.”

  I returned to the cafeteria for an early lunch, got a turkey sandwich with chips and a soda, and then sat in my normal seat. Over the five-week break, I had fallen back into the routine of my job. After so much happened in my first semester here, it felt odd that all my clients were human. At Quintessence, everything revolved around magic and using magic to do good… then I went out in the human world and it was as if everything I went through was a dream.

  But it wasn’t. I was back in the paranormal community, where people were never what they seemed and reality was constantly in question. This was a community where the strong flourished and the weak floundered. Magic could heal wounds, sway loyalties, and kill.

  I killed John Cross, not with magic but with my hands. I still saw him dying in my dreams. I still saw the horrible, revolting things he did with his power, which was now my power. When I was a child, I did things without realizing it; I healed people, found things, followed my supernatural instincts, and… some people were hurt when they upset me. There was potential in me to turn out the same way John did.

  Accidentally controlling Regina proved that.

  When I was done eating, I returned to my room to find Darwin and Ghost having a glaring contest. Darwin was sitting up in his bed while Ghost was infesting mine with fleas. I ignored them and sat at my desk. While I didn’t like the cat being in my bed, I wasn’t willing to fight the beast for it.

  “You realize that your cat is a thief, right?”

  “He’s Vincent’s cat, not mine. What did he take?”

  “An earring.” He pointed to a small piece of gold jewelry on my desk.

  I sighed. The cat was an idiot, but he did save my life with chalk. I removed a small box from my desk drawer, slipped the earring inside, and returned the box. Ghost purred.

  “I’m a little surprised to see you back, you know,” Darwin said. “I thought you would be driven away by the vampires.”

  “I need to learn to control my abilities, and I need to be here to do that.”

  “Dad said the council asked you to keep the peace between the vampires and the other students.”

  “Actually, it was Vincent, which was the only reason I agreed to help.”

  “Really? That’s… not cool. Either your uncle is an idiot, or you are.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “First of all, no halfway intelligent vampire is going to trust you after your history with Astrid, which means your uncle is going to get you killed. Vampires don’t have a pack structure like most shifters do, so you will have to kill anyone who threatens you. That will only make you their enemy.”

  “But Clara is in charge of them.”

  “She’s in charge of their rules and reporting their behavior to Stephen, but they don’t obey her or Stephen out of a bond or desire to please their alpha. If a shifter views you as their alpha, they may act out,
but they’ll ultimately want you to be happy with them. There is a big difference between a pack shifter and a solitary one, yet they all have a human side that wants to please their alpha. Vampires only obey if there is a constant threat of death hanging over their heads. They’re not mindless beasts, but they’re not pack-minded.”

  “I don’t think I should be the peace-keeper, because I don’t actually agree with the peace treaty that the wizards set up with them. It’s not even the fact that vampires are designed to drink blood.”

  “It’s because you trusted Astrid more than anyone and she broke your trust in the worst way,” Darwin said. “I get it. The council is trying to force us to trust vampires. They’re demanding that you trust strangers, when you were wronged by a friend. My dad would say ya got to forgive da lasses for their savage ways.”

  I laughed. “I don’t think that applies here.”

  “I’m sure there are many good vampires out there. Now, that brings me to my second point. Supposing Vincent trusts you to survive, you’ll be spending every minute after dark trying to stop fights and settle disputes. The council will constantly be looking over your shoulder and the entire student body will be expecting you to protect them. It sounds to me that Vincent came up with the perfect way to keep you from sniffing around something else. Where is your uncle, anyway?”

  “He said he was unavailable.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “More than I trust the vampires. He’s John’s brother, though.” I stood. “I’m going to get some cucumbers and feed the kappa.”

  “I’ll go, too.”

  Most of the students were still in class, so the dining room was empty. I went around the buffet to where the cooks were washing dishes. Justice, an older lady, glared at everyone and scared the other cooks. Her long white hair was tied up and netted, while her white apron was about as dingy as it could get.

  She took one look at me and walked away, only to return a moment later from the walk-in with a handful of cucumbers.

  * * *

  When the sun went down, Darwin and I were still at the lake. It was ominous, as if we could sense the vampires waking up. The windows in the castle lit up, one by one, like glowing eyes.

  “Do you think this is going to work with them?”

  “I have seen a cougar befriend a deer in captivity. Actually, I saw it on a documentary.”

  “Vampires aren’t animals.”

  “No. They’re worse. My parents weren’t attacked by a cougar.”

  “Well, we need to get to class. The damn school is being overrun by monsters. Soon, there won’t be anyone but wizards and vampires.”

  “I thought you were more or less okay with them.”

  “Not the vampires I got a problem with, bro. It’s the wizard council that’s the monsters. If my dad knew Kale Lucos was teaching our class, every shifter in the school would be pulled by the end of the day.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t know they were coming,” I said.

  He rolled his eyes. “I knew they were coming, I just didn’t know they were going to try to teach anything. We should probably be glad it’s just Kale Lucos and Grayson Adams. The more of them you get together, the more stubborn and arrogant they become. Besides, those two aren’t the worst guys on the council.”

  We arrived at our classroom to see Jackson and his group of friends holding up the entrance. They stood aside for Becky and Mack to go in, but then blocked the path of three others. My instincts pushed against my nerves; these three were vampires.

  “Let us through. This is ridiculous,” one of them said. She was small, only about five-two, and South American. The other two vampires with her were male and tall.

  Jackson sneered at them. “Your kind is not wanted here. Go back to your coffins, bloodsuckers.” The female vampire bared her fangs in anger and Jackson created a fireball.

  “Hey! You’re going to hurt someone if you fight here!” Darwin yelled. I grabbed him by his hoodie and pulled him away in time to avoid the fireball, which didn’t even come close to hitting the vampires. Jackson’s face flamed with embarrassment and anger; he obviously blamed his opponents for his poor aim.

  “What is going on here?” the professor asked, drawn by the commotion. It was Kale, who I met at the council. He was middle-aged, tall and thin, with black hair, dark brown eyes, and frown lines around his mouth. When he spotted the vampires, his scowl deepened.

  I could see the wheels turning in his head; he couldn’t get onto the vampires without disgracing his peace treaty. Then he saw me.

  “Mr. Sanders, I’m sure you are responsible for this.”

  The council wasn’t too happy when they discovered that John Cross’s son was not only alive, but practicing magic as well. Even though I hadn’t seen any members except for the one time I was at the council, Vincent told me that they knew all about my job, my reasons for attending Quintessence, and my aversion to vampires.

  “Devon didn’t do anything, stupid,” Darwin barked.

  Kale turned his glare on Darwin. “Mr. Mason. I see you are going to be as much of a problem as your father. You and Mr. Sanders have detention, as well as Mr. Michaels,” he said, turning to Jackson. Jackson blanched. “Now, everyone get to class or I will start flunking people.”

  The dark classroom had a hardwood floor, stone walls, and no windows. The only light came from a chandelier with candles instead of bulbs. There were six square tables, each about three feet wide, with four chairs at each one. Darwin and I sat at one table and we were joined a few minutes later by Henry.

  There was nothing in the front of the room as far as a desk or podium. Kale faced the class with an unusually rigid posture and gave each and every student a glare. “I am not a teacher,” he began. “For those of you, uneducated students, who do not know my work, I am Kale Lucos, master of magic and head of the wizard council.”

  Darwin rolled his eyes. Even I knew there was no head of the wizard council.

  “You will refer to me as ‘Master Lucos.’ Anything else will be cause for detention. If you haven’t figured it out yet, ‘Development of the Paranormal Community’ and ‘Paranormal Relations’ are two parts of the same class. Over this semester, you will learn how the four factions of the paranormal community came together, how we work together, and how we stay a secret from the humans.”

  “Why do we have to hide from the humans?” one girl asked. “My father is human and he loves my fae mother. Fae and wizards are really just humans with powers. Shifters are humans that can shift into animals.”

  “And vampires?” another student argued. “How do vampires fit into the human world?”

  “That’s not what this class is for,” Kale interrupted. “Everyone get in groups of four; one wizard, one vampire, one shifter, and one fae. You are going to tell each other where you came from and what your life was like.”

  With a lot of grumbling, students got up and rearranged themselves. Darwin, Henry, and I stayed put. A moment later, a vampire sat down in the seat across from me and completed our group. He was right at six-three, had black hair with the same burgundy eyes as Clara, and looked like he didn’t want to be here any more than we wanted him here.

  There was nothing sinister about him. Even though most of the vampires I had seen had normal eyes, his were not menacing. It was probably because his expression was reserved and without suspicion or arrogance.

  Henry, in the seat to the right of me, reached out his hand to shake the vampire’s. “I’m Henry.”

  The vampire looked a little surprised and shook his hand. “Erik.”

  I forced myself not to cringe as I reached my hand out next. “I’m–”

  “You’re Devon Sanders. I know.” He shook my hand. “I’m friends with Cody. I was there at Stephen’s coven when you went off on Astrid.”

  “I’m Darwin,” Darwin supplied enthusiastically. “Don’t touch anyone, sorry.” He pulled his arms away when Erik offered his hand.

  “Okay… So, I gue
ss I should go first, since two of you look like you would rather shoot me than tell me your blood types.” He stuck his left hand into his pocket, pulled out a plastic film canister, and opened it. A small ball of what looked like dark gray play-dough fell out. After putting the canister away, he rolled the ball in his hands, flattened it, and rolled it again.

  “I’m type A,” I said.

  He smirked. “You’re lying.”

  “You can smell my blood?”

  “From further away than you could see me, and I can hear your heartbeat, too. But, I don’t have to smell it to know you’re lying. You don’t trust me, so you wanted to see how much of a predator I am. You wanted to see if I could differentiate your AB blood type. Don’t be mistaken; vampires make perfect killers; we’re fast, we can thrall our victims, and we have fantastic senses. That being said, we also have weaknesses, we can’t do magic like wizards or fae, and we can’t shift.

  “All of us were designed to work together. We would be feared and hunted by most humans if they knew about the paranormal beings among them. One on one, a paranormal of any kind could best a human, but they outnumber us ten-to-one. That’s why we have to all work together, not only to keep ourselves secret, but also to protect each other if humans do figure it out.”

  “Excuse me,” a gentle voice interrupted. A woman in her early twenties stepped in between Darwin and me. “All the other tables already have a fae… is there any chance…” She had a slight Scottish accent.

  Demure to a fault. She was five-five, slim without being too thin, shapely even. Her curly hair was mostly ginger with strands that ranged from the brightest orange to the deepest gold, and her eyes were the exact color of clovers.

  Darwin smiled brightly and jumped out of his chair, kicking the table. “No problem! I’m a throwback, so I don’t count.” She blushed, sat, and let him tuck her chair in. He then found another chair and squeezed it in between the woman and Erik. “Welcome to our pack. We’ve got the super-wizard, Devon, the prim-and-proper shifter, Henry, our new bloodsucker, Erik, and me, Darwin, the goof.”