by D. N. Hoxa
“My fairies are going to keep everyone in order until nightfall.”
Kyahen spoke from my right side while I’d turned left to look at the growing crowd, and once again I felt like I wanted to jump but I controlled myself.
“When will it be nightfall, exactly?”
“We’re in Necterram,” Kyahen said, as I suspected he would. “It can take minutes, hours, or Earth days.”
“Good to know.”
Edison’s wolf growled to get my attention, and when I looked at it, it nodded his head towards the doors.
“Shall we?” said Kyahen.
I raised a brow in disbelief. “You’re coming?”
Kyahen’s answer was to walk right out the door, after a curt nod at his fairies. Well, it looked like I’d misjudged the fairy as well. I was more than glad he would be there to fight beside us.
The three-foot tunnel led out of the door and straight into a forest. The forest, the one I’d been in with Aaron. The one with dead trees and land and…everything. Having to turn my senses on made me shiver, but I did it anyway. We still had no idea where in Necterram Samayan really was.
“Remember Azazel,” I said to Arturo and slowly began to remove my shields.
Arturo nodded. “I’m ready.” His sword was drawn, and there was no fear in his eyes.
“Stay alive.” If I trusted any Nephil with Azazel’s death, it was Arturo. I was going to fight Azazel, and I was going to get him as weak as I possibly could before Arturo took over and killed him. If everything went as planned, Aaron would be free. And when Aaron was free, getting to Ella was going to be easier. He was the best fighter I knew, other than Vladimir.
“You, too,” said Arturo.
I was definitely going to try.
When my senses stretched far enough, Necterram’s energy punched me right in the throat, exactly as it had the first time. The trees, the land, the air—they were all completely void of life. A kind of magic that shouldn’t be allowed to exist hung around us, making sure the trees were grey and the ground was dry. Making sure that no animal—not even an insect—could live in the land of no one.
Tears in my eyes. So much loss. I could almost see how beautiful the forest was before the spell had been cast that had stolen all life from it. My cold body fought against the current of dark energy that came at me in waves. It felt like a lifetime before I could blink again, mainly because I knew that this time, there would be no Aaron to get me out of it. To get me to let go of Necterram. I was on my own for this, and my people needed me. My sister needed me.
So I came around.
“Star?” Arturo said, his brows narrowed as he watched me like I was a lunatic. Who knew what face I’d made?
With a deep breath, I started forward. “Let’s go.” My senses stretched as wide as I could make them, which was a lot. I turned to Kyahen. “How big is this place?”
His smile was enough of an answer. “There is no end or beginning to Necterram. It’s as wide as it is at each moment.” I rolled my eyes. “It can become bigger or smaller at any time.” I imagined he meant because of unlimited magic that could be used in that place, which was probably the reason it had become lifeless in the first place.
“Let’s stick together,” I whispered, suddenly having the urge to keep really quiet. We didn’t know where the enemy was and my senses had yet to rise above the energy Necterram released our way. Panic began to crawl up my fingertips, and I pushed it down with all my strength. It demanded to know what would happen if we didn’t find Samayan on time, if we wandered around a dead forest for hours until it was too late.
But we wouldn’t. I trusted myself—I had to—and my senses. I began to walk east because that was where I thought the biggest energy came from. Slowly, we moved as silent as the trees around us. There were no leaves to step on accidentally, just black soil.
That was probably why we didn’t see the big ass wolf running at us before it was too late.
The beast was huge, grey and had long black fur, its eyes yellow and its jaws terrifyingly real. I had my swords out the next second, and by then, adrenaline had kicked in, and the wolf began to move in slow motion. Before it reached us, though, another wolf stepped in front of me and growled. It took me a second to realize it was Edison, his wolf not as big as the stranger’s but equally terrifying.
The black wolf stopped and showed us all its teeth for a second, not bothering to make a single sound. Then, he took a step back. Atypical werewolf behavior, which was why I focused my senses on it. I was surprised but only for a brief second. The wolf was none other than Everett Hapsburg, and the man was big. I shouldn’t have been so surprised to find his wolf so huge.
“Stand down,” I said to Edison and the rest. “It’s Hapsburg.”
The wolf took another step back and looked right into my eyes. Though he was in wolf form, I could see the man behind the animal. I also could see that he was trying to tell me something. Show me something.
“Lead the way,” I said to Hapsburg, and as if it was relieved, the wolf turned impossibly fast and began to run east.
“Are you sure about this?” Arturo whispered from my side, but there was no time to answer. I was already running full speed behind Everett because something told me he had found something. Otherwise why bother to come looking for us when he could’ve simply sent his fairy hosts to Kyahen?
The silence was deafening, even as we ran. Everett was fast. I could barely hold onto his large black tail with my eyes long enough to follow him. No longer concentrating on my senses to find the way, I felt relieved. Much more in control of my body, and as I ran, my body seemed to fully wake up, and I was dying for a fight already. This was one of the few things I liked about myself. When it came to fighting, I fought with all—body and soul.
Time lost sense as we followed Everett. The grey trees around me had already turned into a blur. I wondered how much farther we’d have to run, how much more energy we’d all have to spend, just as I realized Everett’s black tail had stopped moving.
I slowed down before I could stop completely, and so did the others. Where Everett had stopped, the ground began to rise steeply almost ten feet. It was going to be tricky to climb because there was nothing to hold onto, and the soil looked like it would slide under our feet. Everett turned to look at me once before he jumped, so high, he landed right on top of what looked to be a very steep hill.
Edison didn’t need to be told. He ran, jumped, and landed right next to Everett.
“Shall we?” said Kyahen, and with a sigh, I moved forward, as fast as I could. We could use all the momentum we could get to climb up.
I was right—the soil was too soft. I contemplated connecting to it, but then I’d already wasted enough energy running. I had to save my powers for when they would most count: when I met the big players.
It took a while, but eventually, I clawed my way up the hill, only to realize it wasn’t a hill at all.
The climb led us right onto a beach.
“What the hell?” said Big Mike as he took in the view in front of us. Blue water everywhere, just a few steps from where we were standing. A freaking lake in the middle of dead land. But that wasn’t what had all of us shivering. It was the fact that right where the water began, a huge, dark grey cloud took up the whole damn sky like it was mounted on it. And under it, a long swim away, stood an island.
“The fucking bloodsucker,” I hissed, just as Everett howled. “Stop it! Do you want them to know we’re here?” The wolf fell silent the next second. I turned to Kyahen. “Guess we have our meeting point.” He nodded, then disappeared into thin air to go spread the word to all portal exits his fairies had opened in Necterram.
Soon, everyone except the vampires would be there. Soon, we’d have to find a way to the island in the middle of the lake so we could walk right into the snake’s lair.
22
——————————
I thought about every possibility. Not too long since there weren’
t many ways we could pass over all that water and reach the island. In fact, there were none.
“Tell me again why you can’t open a portal over there?” I asked Kyahen. He’d gotten all of us there. Why couldn’t he get us from one point to another?
“Because portals do not work within Necterram. Too much magic to interfere with a portal’s energy,” Kyahen said for the third time, not even trying to hide how annoyed he was.
“Right. And you can’t just disappear from here and appear there?” He was a fairy. They had the best means of transportation. There had to be a way around this.
“Don’t you feel the magic surrounding this island? It’s not even exactly Necterram. It’s an added space.”
Kyahen wasn’t happy about it, and I can’t say I was either. I did feel the magic surrounding the island. Too much of it. Too dark. Too powerful to break.
“They’re here!” Naomi called.
I turned just in time to look at the sunny side of Necterram. A few minutes ago, there had been nothing but trees there. Now, supernaturals walked toward us like robots, and I couldn’t see the end.
A sense of pride invaded me as people we’d trained together with Arturo at the Base came into view. Next to them were others I’d never seen before, dressed in black, all wearing identical hats, too. Witches, warlocks, shifters, the occasional demon, too.
“The rest will be here, soon,” Kyahen said.
I was almost surprised that there were more people who had answered my call until I remembered the deals I’d made with supernaturals who were once my enemies and whose armies now answered to me.
“Hell, yeah,” Big Mike said as he rose on the tips of his toes to try and see where the crowd ended. His huge grin said he couldn’t.
“What about your fairies?” I asked Kyahen, and he answered with a cold smile.
“They’ll be here right on time.” I trusted they would, so I didn’t comment. “For now, you need to figure out how to get us over there.” He actually put his arms on my shoulders and turned me toward the island. It didn’t look that big, but I couldn’t see the other side. And we were too far to judge properly.
Kyahen was right. If there was going to be any fighting, we had to figure out how to get there.
“What the hell is that?”
The voice made us all turn to look. Amber Hawk together with Ned and Gin Thornton had already climbed up on the beach and were standing right behind us. So they were there, too.
“An island,” I said.
Amber raised her brow in disgust. “I can see that.”
Leave it to her to push my buttons at the wrong time.
“Oh, thank God. I was afraid you’d turn out to be blind. You wouldn’t have done us any good that way.”
“How are we going to get to the other side?” asked Ned, apparently already annoyed by our behavior. He looked better than I expected. No fear shone in his eyes, only determination.
“We’re working on that.” I flinched.
Both his brows raised and he leaned a bit back as if I’d actually slapped him. Drama queen.
“You do realize they’ve probably seen us already, right?”
I did realize that, but that wasn’t going to help us get to the island faster. “I want them to see us,” I said instead. “I’m not trying to hide.”
“Well, then, you’re a fool!” Amber shook her head like she couldn’t believe her ears.
“I’m the fool that’s in charge. This conversation isn’t going to help me find a way over. If you have any ideas, lay ‘em out. That’s the only thing I want to hear right now.” We were there, ready to fight, and calling each other fools wasn’t going to get us anywhere close to winning.
“Aren’t you the Elemental? Just make the water disappear,” was Ned’s wise idea. God, he was such an idiot sometimes, I wondered how he’d managed to climb so high in the Council in the first place.
“I can’t just make water disappear.” And I shouldn’t have had to tell him that at all. Did he even research his enemies and their abilities? Because I was his enemy, no matter that we’d come to an arrangement about the current situation.
“Then push it aside. Make way for us to pass. Do something!” Oh, wow.
“You’ve watched too many movies,” I mumbled. I wasn’t freaking Moses.
“So we’re stuck here?” Gin Thornton said, shaking his head like he just didn’t get it.
“We’re not stuck.”
We were stuck. Unless I could figure out a way to make Necterram water respond to me the way Earth water did.
“Enough with the nonsense,” Kyahen said with a sigh, and that earned him a mean comeback from Amber, but I tuned them out fast. I walked closer to the water and reached out my hands toward it.
The lake responded to me, but it was lazy. It wanted time to bond. Time we did not have. But I couldn’t let myself give up. We’d made it this far. I hadn’t even had time to get excited that we’d found Samayan and his army—because there was an army on that island. Vampires and werewolves. So much of them, their signatures had become almost one. Aaron and Ella were there, too. They had to be. I was going to find a way to get to them.
With a sigh, I took my jacket off and then proceeded to all of my straps, belts, sheaths and holsters.
“What are you doing?” asked Ned.
“She’s fucking lost it,” Amber mumbled.
“Star?” Big Mike asked.
“I’m going into the water to find a way through it.” It was potentially a very stupid idea but the only one I had. If I became one with the water, it would maybe respond to me. It was worth a shot. Much better than standing there, doing nothing.
The others had no more comments—even Amber, if you can believe it. They simply watched me take my boots off, then jump into the water without a second thought, in only my pants and shirt.
The water was colder than I expected. It sucked me in as if every drop was desperate for me. As I suspected, no fish swam the lake. The water was clear, and I could see far enough. I spread out my arms and legs and closed my eyes as I felt the water in every part of my body. The connection became stronger instantly.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t strong enough to allow me to move that much water anywhere. Bubbles left my mouth filled with a thousand curse words. What the hell were we going to do? I looked up at the surface. I was running out of air, fast, and I was going to have to get out soon. Ned was right, they’d already seen us. They knew we were coming. Time was ticking.
So I closed my eyes and I tried again. Commanding water required me to be calm and relaxed. Maybe that was the problem. I couldn’t be calm or relaxed now. As the seconds passed by, I realized I wasn’t going to get anywhere with it.
Except…there was something else. My lungs screamed for air, but I stayed down a second longer. It almost felt like something was calling out to me.
That something was the bed of the lake.
It was amazing I hadn’t thought about it before. I hadn’t even tried to connect with the dead soil of Necterram because it had looked too fragile. But fragile in my case meant easily manipulated. When I’d opened myself to controlling the water, I’d managed to connect with the lake’s bed.
When my head broke the surface, I saw dark spots in my vision. A few seconds more and I would’ve probably lost consciousness under water. But it didn’t matter. I was there, and I knew exactly what I was going to do.
“Help me out,” I asked the supernaturals who were looking at me like they expected me to grow an extra head. Big Mike strode forward and gave me both his hands to take. I was on my feet in less than a second, dripping wet.
“I’m going to need you all to step back,” I said, so excited I could burst.
“What are you planning to do?” asked Kyahen, a skeptical brow raised.
“I’m going to get us to that fucking island,” I said with a grin.
I didn’t need to say more. All of them, including Edison and Everett in their kickass wolf forms, ste
pped back all the way to the edge. I put my weapons back on my person as fast as I could, and before I was done, my clothes were completely dry. As was my hair. A look back confirmed my suspicion. Amber Hawk had both her hands up, her eyes closed as she chanted whatever drying spell she’d chosen. Someone had probably made her, but I was thankful nonetheless.
I turned back to the lake, and I sat down on the ground, legs crossed. I dug my fingers deep into the soft soil, and I let go of all my breath.
The connection was there instantly. As soon as I opened myself to the ground, as soon as I let it invade my mind, I felt my energy spread into it through the tips of my fingers.
What I asked from it was simple: suck on the water of the lake. Let it drain down under, deep enough that we’d be able to walk all the way to the island without trouble.
And Necterram’s ground obeyed.
It began slowly. Though I had my eyes closed, I felt the change in structure. I felt the energy. I felt the water slowly lose power as the ground beneath it sucked it and pushed it deep into the ground.
My mind was in bliss. Eventually, my life was perfect and I had no problems. No kidnapped sister or boyfriend. No war. No enemies. Just peace.
I could have stayed there, connected to the elements forever. Unfortunately for me, there were people behind me, waiting for me to make way so they could fight against out mutual enemy.
“Is it working?” someone called from behind me.
“Just give her a sec.” I recognized Naomi’s voice.
It was working, but I didn’t bother with a reply. They were going to see it with their own eyes soon enough.
It could have been a lifetime later, or a single minute, when everything clicked into place in my chest. It was the ground’s way of telling me that it had been done. I was reluctant to let go, so tired of it all that an eternity of that kind of bliss sounded almost too important to turn down. But my sister needed me. Aaron needed me. The whole world needed me. So I opened up my eyes.