by Oxford, Rain
Heat quickly built in my chest. I let that heat grow, fueled it with more memories of my ex-wife, and held up my hand to the golem to focus. Before I let the fire of my anger out, I thought of the gnome that warded the tree off. He could face a foe much larger than him because he was the essence of earth, which was strength and grounding.
The essence of water was to trust and love. I learned to trust Henry and Darwin and I learned to let go of much of my hate for Astrid. I had been so afraid of becoming like John… like either my biological father or the man who raised me. That was why Hunt assigned me to the earth element this semester; earth was the element that would keep me in control of myself. Earth was strength of mind, not body. If I was strong of mind, it didn’t matter how large my opponent was.
By allowing myself to use my anger as a tool and not just try to fight it, I was taking control of it. I unleashed the heat from my body. Fire formed in my hand and struck the golem. I felt a moment of fear that my fire would hurt Henry, but I needn’t have worried. As my roommate tried to claw the golem’s throat out, my fire split apart to avoid the jaguar and only struck my foe.
The golem threw Henry off and vanished back down the hole. Henry sniffed the air, still growling, and turned to me. He snarled.
My fire had died when the golem ran, but it wasn’t like I would burn Henry even if I could. Except Henry said his jaguar was a different being entirely. “Calm down, Henry, I’m not your enemy,” I said gently. He growled and opened his mouth to display every damn sharp tooth.
I reached out with my magic to connect with his mind, like I had always done when threatened by dangerous animals. His ears flattened in anger as he sensed my invasion. “Shift,” I told him aloud. He growled again. The jaguar’s mind was one of the strongest I had ever encountered.
“Okay, okay.” I let his mind go. “We’ll do this the hard way.” I put my hand out flat like I was training a dog, hoping I would still have a hand in the next few seconds. “Stop,” I said harshly.
The cat’s ears twitched. He was probably wondering how crazy I was and if that would affect how I tasted.
“Henry, back off! Bad!”
He snarled and his body lowered, forcing his head to angle upward. His hind legs crouched and rocked as if he was about to pounce. I stepped forward, not allowing any fear or hesitation take hold, since I knew shifters could smell it. Instead of biting my hand, he retreated several steps.
“Better, Henry. Now shift!”
He growled and did a fake lunge at me, but I held my ground. He retreated further. Although the jaguar may have had a different mind than my roommate, they were still connected. Henry was nothing if not protective.
“Henry, shift.”
The jaguar’s hair started to recede and I heard bones crack. I wanted to look away, but the change from cat into man was too quick. He was faster than any of the shifters I had seen and before I knew it, Henry was standing in front of me, naked, panting, and covered in sweat.
“It takes a lot of energy,” he explained.
“Well, you may need to shift right back into the cat.” I passed him and exited the castle. Outside, more mayhem was taking place on the practice field. Using force fields, the headmaster was able to prevent four relentless golems from getting to the students. But only barely, for he couldn’t attack and defend simultaneously. “Can you go again?”
“I need a minute to regulate my blood sugar and dehydration.”
“You can self-regulate your blood?”
“I can shift into a cat nearly twice the size of any lion and camouflage my fur. Are you honestly surprised? I can regulate my blood sugar, sodium levels, insulin, and even my body temperature output.”
Damn. “I have a job for you if you ever want one.”
He nodded. “I’ll take you up on that if I can ever kill my parents without getting caught.” He shifted in the blink of an eye and took off for the golems. Before he singled one out, he became invisible.
I reached the group just as Vincent appeared behind Hunt in the cloud of darkness that seemed to be the hottest means of transportation for overly-powerful wizards. I dared to hope he was here to help.
“Langril is about to get the key!” he shouted.
Hunt looked right at me and mouthed that he was sorry before he and Vincent disappeared. “You bastards!” I yelled, too late.
Maseré and his pack were in shifted form, as were the remaining thirty or so shifters who had stayed at the school. The shifters were all ready to take Maseré’s lead, but the wizards and fae had no idea how to fight these things.
Unfortunately, neither did I.
“Darwin. How do you kill golems?”
“Not fire. That can make them stronger depending on how they’re built. He must have an artifact of creation; a message on his forehead, and amulet, something. Otherwise he would have no purpose. I bet the shadows that possessed them are hiding it.”
I assessed the group of remaining students. Most of them were years younger than me, but they had grown up in Hunt’s magic schools. By chance, I saw Len and Dan, which gave me an idea. “Darwin I need you to go to the dorms.”
“Are you crazy?”
“I need that mud creature on my desk.”
“It’s probably been destroyed. Can’t you make another one?”
I shook my head. “Langril wouldn’t have given it to me without a reason. That one has magic in it that he specifically put in it.”
Darwin nodded. “Okay.” He didn’t look happy about it, but he turned and ran to the dorms. When one of the golems tried to go after him, it was taken down by Henry.
“If you know how to use force fields, use them!” I said to the group. Several of the wizards put up shields, although the shields weren’t very powerful. The shifters had already figured out that biting the golems didn’t work. “Shifters, hold the golems back, don’t try to take them out. Those of you who can use shields, protect the shifters. If you can control the elements, start doing some mix-and-matching. Combine your powers and see if you can find something that works.”
Everything from fire tornadoes to burning balls of mud were shot wildly through the practice field. Fortunately, the shifters were very effective at keeping the golems from advancing, while the shields kept them from getting seriously injured.
A startled yelp distracted me and Henry returned to my side, covered in a goopy, black substance that looked like tar. “What happened to you?” I saw the golem he had been fighting was just a puddle of gunk on the ground. “How did you do it?”
He nudged his muzzle against my chest. When I tried to push him away, I felt the chain hanging out of his mouth.
“Let me see,” I said, trying to pull it out. He snarled, so I slapped him. He clamped his mouth on my shoulder, not breaking the skin, but a clear warning. I slapped him again. “Cut it out!” He let me go and spit the pendent out at me. It was a weird, silver pendant only about two inches tall with foreign writing on it. “Good job. Try to get more of these.” He growled at me and clamped down on my arm this time. That was going to leave marks.
Frustrated and impatient, I bit his ear hard, thankful it was a spot clear of the black goop. He let me go and backed off. I figured he was in shock that I would bite back, but then he just turn and continued fighting the golems.
Darwin returned then with the dried figure. “Are you going to make a golem yourself?”
“I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do.” I took the figure, careful not to touch Darwin’s skin accidentally, and set it on the ground. I focused on the essence of water and earth, since I hadn’t learned fire and air yet. I narrowed my focus like Tanaka-sensei had taught us and visualized what I wanted, like Remy had talked about.
I imagined the creature absorbing the power of earth and water, but I also imagined it having a functioning mind. It wanted peace and was adaptive like the undine, and was strong and wanted balance like gnomes. These two were part of the fabric of the world and it was only natural for
the creature to absorb them. The last thing I added was part of me; part of my power.
Lohem. I shared with it my soul and it shared its name with me.
“Protect us, Lohem,” I told it.
The creature began to grow, so everyone backed away from it. Within a few seconds, it was as big as the other golems. Fortunately, a basic face formed on the creature. It didn’t have a nose or ears, but it had a mouth. Two clear eyes formed, somewhat like small crystal balls. Unlike the golems, it had a brain, and since I knew what to go for, it did too. Lohem struck the first golem by putting its massive fist through the golem’s chest. When Lohem retracted his arm, it held one of the pendants and the golem dissolved into black goo.
The remaining two golems were tougher. Henry and Lohem converged on one while everyone else converged on the second. Between our combined efforts of elemental magic, relentless strikes of nature, and the discovery that some of the students could create lightning, we managed to hinder the golem enough for Maseré to sink his fangs into the golem’s chest. The golem struck him and sent him flying, but the pendant was lodged firmly in his teeth. The golem dissolved.
Henry was somehow able to get a hold on the remaining golem’s head with his long fangs, so he held it still while Lohem tore the pendant out. Everyone was waiting in startled relief for the next thing to go wrong, as if they couldn’t believe we had won. Lohem dissolved, not into goo but into nothing, and I was suddenly hit with lethargy like I had never felt before. Henry came to me peacefully this time, concerned even, when I fell back into the mud. At least it wasn’t raining anymore.
Maseré shifted back into his person form and reached out to help me up, but Henry growled at him. Maseré growled back, as did his entire pack. Henry stood his ground.
“It’s okay, I’m okay,” I panted. “I think I just got the backlash of my elemental.”
Henry sat beside me, not willing to let anyone else near me. I tried to pet him and he growled, but leaned into my hands anyway.
“I hate cats,” I said. His growl turned into a weird purring sound. I was under the impression that cats could either roar or purr, but not both. “I didn’t know jaguars could purr.” He stopped himself instantly, as if he hadn’t realized he was doing it. I sighed. “Go help get everyone back inside. I’m just going to rest a minute.”
He shifted and did as I said. Before he went inside, Henry turned back, his eyes wide, and I knew immediately what I had forgotten about; the fifth golem was still active. I didn’t have time to move; I could feel it looming over me. I looked up just as its massive fist was coming down on me.
Bright red light met with black, swirling darkness like something out of an alien horror flick. The golem made a cry so inhuman it sent shivers down my spine before it burst into black goop. I was splattered quite thoroughly with the black “blood” of the golem. Behind where the golem had been were Hunt and Vincent.
My vision dimmed and lethargy clawed its way deeper into me until I felt myself tip.
* * *
No dreams. That was the thought I woke with, and it was pretty fantastic to me. Maybe I was just too tired for them. I opened my eyes to find myself in Hunt’s office again, only Nightshade wasn’t rubbing anything on me.
I was on the couch, Darwin was on the chair across from me, Hunt was in his office chair, and Henry was in front of me in his jaguar form, blocking Vincent from getting near me. I sat up and rubbed Henry’s ear, earning a sharp glare. I took my hand back before I lost it.
While I had seen Vincent several times during my first semester and he had promised to teach me some magic, he mostly contacted me by letter. Therefore, his appearance was still a little unexpected each time I saw him. Although I knew he was around Hunt’s age, he didn’t look a day over forty. He was six-four, not thin or muscular, with short black hair. An iron pentagram hung from a thick chain around his neck, which I assumed had some magical connotation that I would learn about at the worst possible moment. None of this was what bothered me.
A scar, clean and thin, crossed from the far end of his left eyebrow to the tip of his left nostril. That eye was eerie, icy blue, while the other was dark purple. I believed this was what connected him to Ghost, since the cat had a similarly odd condition. What bothered me was that although other wizards had familiars, none had a scar, so I had to wonder why he and Ghost did.
“How are you feeling?” my uncle asked.
“Like you and Hunt shouldn’t have left us to take care of the golems on our own.”
“We can talk about that later. Stephen said you had a vision of the castle being attacked.”
“I had a dream. I also had a dream of the vampires being attacked and of Gale killing Astrid.”
“When you saw the vampires being attacked, did you see anyone unusual?”
“You mean like the creepy guy Amelia saw in the shadows? Yeah. Who is he?” I asked. Vincent and Hunt looked at each other. “Who is he?” I repeated.
“An old enemy who Logan and I are dealing with. More concerning right now are these visions. When did they start?”
“After I killed John. And I’m not letting this go; I will find out who the shadow man is.”
Vincent winced. “Devon, you inherited your psychic powers from John, and they were so obvious. Thus, we assumed you only had that power. Unfortunately, my father had two incredibly powerful psychic abilities. One of which, the mind control, John got. The other is what I got, which is the ability to have visions. I can see things through another’s eyes or even see the future.”
“So I got both?”
“I’m afraid so. Fortunately, I can help you learn to control it through exercises of concentration.”
Chapter 12
“Things like wands, colored candles, and incense are all focal tools. They are entirely necessary, but they are just used to help you focus,” Vincent said.
It was sunset on the day after the golem battle and we were sitting in the same classroom where Tanaka-sensei had our focusing training. The rest of the students had already started on rebuilding the dorms.
“Say, for example, that you had a plastic apple sitting on your desk. Every time you picked up this apple, you thought of a purple monkey. You focus on this monkey every single time. Eventually, you will get to the point that if you pick up the apple, you cannot not think of the purple monkey.”
“Why would you use an apple in your example when monkeys like bananas?” I asked.
“Because they’re purple monkeys, and everyone knows purple monkeys only eat plastic apples.”
Okay, so my uncle has a sense of humor. Good to know. “Then what eats plastic bananas?”
“Blue baboons.”
Or he’s entirely insane.
“The purpose of this training is to create an on/off switch for your power. Without it, the power can suck the life out of you. First, you must be able to induce a vision. It doesn’t have to be anything serious. I’m going to give you a playing card, which belongs to one of your classmates. By the end of this exercise, you will be able to tell me who it belonged to and how they got it.”
He gave me the playing card and told me to start daydreaming. I was instructed to daydream about someone walking into a store and buying a card. He told me not to imagine any specific kind of store, any names, or any faces. I didn’t even imagine a specific card. While I daydreamed, however, I held it in my hand. For the purpose of not influencing the vision, I didn’t look at it.
At first, it was really boring because I had to keep replaying the daydream over and over. Then, after the twentieth or so time, I realized the scene was getting clearer. Things appeared on the shelves that I hadn’t pictured before. A few scenes later, I saw the name of the pawnshop. Everything came together quickly after that. It was a woman named Amanda; a fox shifter who was looking for a birthday present for her brother.
Too late, I realized my two powers had crossed paths; I was reading her mind. I found out that she was just about to start the semester at Q
uintessence and she wanted to get the present before she left. She had to take it with her to school so he wouldn’t find it while she was gone.
My vision changed to the earthquake. Amanda knew she had to get out of the dorms, but she didn’t want to leave her brother’s gift behind. She dug around in her dresser until she found the box of cards, then started towards the door with them clutched tightly in her hand. She tripped when the floor caved in and opened to the room beneath her. The cards flew out of her hands into the hole.
I sensed a terribly powerful urgency swarm her mind, demanding she got out right that second. It was me. I was the reason she had to abandon the cards. But she was alive, at least.
I opened my eyes and immediately looked down at my hand as Vincent pulled a ring off my left index finger. It was an odd ring; the finger part was normal, but the silver metal curved outward in a strange entanglement of emeralds and silver. It didn’t actually resemble anything. The twisted confusion of it made it seem a little… menacing.
“What is that?”
“This was my father’s vision ring. I use one that my first wife made for me,” he said, pushing his pentagram aside and pulling another object out from under the collar of his black shirt. It was a small, black satin sack he wore on a silver chain. “When you induce a vision, you need to put this ring on, and then take it off when your vision is over. By doing this, you will build links in your magic. Eventually, every time you put the ring on, you will have visions.”
“And I can stop them by taking it off?” I asked. That was the first really good news I had ever gotten from my uncle.
“Yes. You can also do it with your mind control, although a ring would not work well. That is something I cannot help you much with, other than to give you the book. You must not let anyone else get their hands on that book.”
“It keeps disappearing when I leave it alone. In the vision I just had, Amanda lost the cards in the dorms.”
“Darwin found them and felt like they were important to someone. Having overheard him bring it up to his father, I thought it would make a good practice session for you to find out who they belong to. You should be able to return them now that you know.”