Elementris, Exposure, Eruption Box set: The Vangeretta Curse Series

by Christina Mobley

  She turned to Alec as he shifted gears and left the stop sign behind. “They can feel you,” he said.

  “It’s strange,” Ava said, looking in the side view mirror.

  “It’s beautiful,” Nisca said from the back seat.

  She leaned forward looking up at the sky parting before them. The puffy white and gray-stained clouds seemed to be clearing a path of blue sky just for them. Ava shook her head, thinking how strange it all was. The animals on the island reacted to her presence, but not like this. She wondered what she had been missing all this time on the island. If it were possible, she would get out and fully enjoy her gift. Her connection to the world around her was a curious thing, but Nisca was right. There was something simply beautiful about it.

  An hour later they arrived at the apartment complex that Thomas had directed them to. As they pulled into the parking lot, Ava felt her nerves bunch up and rattle. Alec parked around the back side and he and Thomas got out.

  Ava reached for her door.

  “Ava, wait here,” Alec said, locking eyes with her. “At least let me go and check it out. If something happens you’ll know it and you can use your gift to help.” He tilted his head, “Okay?”

  Ava nodded, releasing the door handle.

  Nisca leaned forward and they both watched as Alec and Thomas disappeared around the back side of the apartment building. A few seconds later Bianca and Shawn followed them. The two Greens Alec had told to protect Ava stayed beside the car and scanned the parking lot.

  Ava shook her head, “Like someone seeing this wouldn’t think it was suspicious. They look like they’re guarding the president or something.”

  “Who?” Nisca asked, looking around the parking lot.

  “Those two,” Ava pointed at the Greens standing on either side of the car.

  “Um,” Nisca gave her a questioning look.

  “You don’t see the two guards standing right there and there?”

  Nisca shook her head, “Are you talking about the two Alec told to protect you?” Nisca smiled as Ava nodded, “I can’t see them Ava, only you can. They must be using a cloaking spell so they don’t look obvious.”

  “Oh,” Ava said looking at them and back at Nisca. Nisca seemed to be looking right past them. “So only I can see them?”

  “Yes,” she shrugged, “I guess because you’re the True Elementris and more powerful than they are.”

  “Oh,” Ava took in a breath. “You still haven’t had any visions or anything?”

  “No,” Nisca said, sounding disappointed in herself. “I wish I could make them come.”

  “I just hope we find them.” Ava said, worried about Brea.

  Alec appeared from behind the building and walked over to the car, “There’s no one there. They’re searching everything now.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Ava asked.

  He shrugged, “We’ll check Lyssa’s old property. Maybe go talk to the friend that Thomas told me about.” He looked up, “Don’t worry, we’ll find her.”

  “I want to go in,” Ava said, opening her door, “Nisca should come too. Maybe she can pick something up.”

  “Okay,” Alec said, “Cloak yourself first, just in case there is someone here who somehow knows who you are. I’ll take you in the front.”

  Ava climbed out, and concentrated on the cloaking spell. She had picked that one up fairly easily but it could be complicated to keep going once started. While using a cloaking spell, you had to concentrate. If something happened to suddenly distract you, it could break and reveal whatever you were trying to cloak.

  Ava and Nisca walked up the stairs behind Alec. He rapped twice on the door and it unlocked and Bianca let them in. “We still haven’t found much,” she said. “It looks like whoever lived here only stayed for a short time. There is hardly any food and no clothes or anything else.”

  Thomas stood up, finished searching the cabinet he had been looking through, “It was Lyssa’s birth mother that stayed here. I didn’t think anything fishy of Lyssa going to see her until after the video. She swears her mother tricked her. I just wish I knew who her mother really is.”

  Bianca sneered, “And lover boy believes her? Surprise, surprise. That girl is a liar and a trickster.” She brushed back her hair, “Just remember, just because a girl looks all sweet and innocent doesn’t mean she is all buttercups and sunshine inside.”

  “You don’t know her,” Thomas snapped.

  “We don’t know anything for certain,” Ava said, glaring at Bianca. “There are a lot of two-faced people in the world and the only thing we do know is that we don’t know what’s really going on. We’ll find out though. You can count on that!” She stopped, realizing she was still glaring at Bianca, and glanced quickly at Alec. Exasperated with herself, she looked inquiringly at Nisca.

  Nisca shook her head, and continued to walk around the apartment touching different things.

  Alec came up behind Ava, whispering in her ear, “What is she doing?”

  “Nothing,” Ava whispered, “she’s just good at noticing details.”

  Ava walked over to Nisca and raised her brows as if she were asking a question.

  Nisca shook her head, but then she braced her hand on the apartment wall and went completely still. Ava stepped in front of her, trying not to make a scene in front of everyone else.

  Luckily Nisca only stayed that way for a few seconds. Nisca took a deep breath and leaned forward to whisper, “Seven.”

  “Seven?” Ava whispered back.

  “Seven, and something to do with a burlap sack.”

  Ava shook her head and looked around the apartment for something to do with seven. There was a small sofa and a little TV; a small pig figurine on top of the TV, nothing on the white counter in the small kitchen.

  Alec came up behind her, “There’s nothing here, Ava.”

  “I know,” she said.

  Alec opened the door and led her and Nisca outside.

  Ava turned back as the apartment door closed behind them. That’s when she saw it; a black six was painted on the door, “Wait!” she said rushing over to the next door; apartment seven.

  Before she thought a second more, she had removed the cloaking spell, and she was knocking on the door.

  A woman appeared wearing a long black skirt and a tight fitting shirt. “Can I help you?”

  Ava detected an attitude in her voice but it didn’t even phase her, “Did you know the woman who lived in apartment six?”

  The woman tilted her head and took a breath, “Why? What do you want?”

  “Do you know where she moved to?”

  She shook her head, “I don’t.”

  “Did you see a young girl come here, or two of them?”

  The woman’s eyes widened and then narrowed “No, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have to go.” She slammed the door.

  Ava pushed her hands out in front of her and slammed the door back open. The woman screamed and tried to run.

  Ava called the wind and swirled it around the woman, stopping her in her tracks. Ava moved towards her, feeling the power bleeding from her fingertips, “Now, that was rude! I didn’t travel all this way to get a door slammed in my face.” Ava walked a circle around the woman as she spoke. “That little move tells me that you might know just a little more about what I’m asking than you say you do. I don’t really have a lot of patience with people who lie to me, in fact—it pretty much just pisses me off, so I would suggest that you tell me what it is you know and that you do it quickly!”

  The woman shook her head, “She will…kill me.” A sudden realization came over the woman’s twisted expression as the wind held her there. “Are you…?”

  “Yes,” Ava replied.

  The woman’s eyes filled with tears, “Please, just...”

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Ava said, glancing at Alec and Nisca.

  She could hear the stomping of the other guards boots as they rushed back up the stairs “Just
tell me where they are.”

  “The Waevern have them.” She shook her head, “They took them from here this morning.”

  Ava nodded, “Where did they take them to?”

  The woman shook her head.

  Ava allowed the wind to tighten around her.

  “Austin!” she screamed.

  “Where in Austin?” Ava shouted back.

  “Headquarters, Lord Mavern’s place. It’s a huge mansion on the southern side. I can get the address for you.” Tears streamed down her face.

  Ava let the wind lighten around her and drift from the room.

  The woman dropped to her knees.

  …Lyssa…

  Lyssa began to focus in on her surroundings. The room was dark and the walls were made of stone. On the far wall bottles holding different creepy things lined ceiling to floor shelves. She looked at the thick chains wrapped around her ankles. Brea was chained the same way. Both sets of chains were locked to a big bolt in the floor.

  Lareina moved across the floor and said, “You might as well stop wiggling; you’ll never get loose from those chains.”

  Lyssa glared up at her mother and shifted her eyes to the wall of jars. A few held liquid. Lyssa smiled and focused on them. She could use her water element at least. Only nothing happened; nothing at all. She couldn’t even get them to shake.

  “Your magic doesn’t work in here, sweetheart.” Lareina smiled, looking at the shelf, “And that is not water.”

  “Why the hell did you bring us here?” Brea shouted.

  Lareina smiled. “I have a better question; where did you get this?” She held the gold vine ring up and twisted it in her fingers.

  Brea glared at her, not saying anything.

  “Not going to answer me? That’s okay, I’m fairly certain I already know anyway,” she slipped the ring onto her finger and admired it in the dim light.

  “Are you going to kill us?” Lyssa asked in a hollow voice.

  “No.” Lareina shook her head, “I would never kill my own daughter.” Her eyes flicked to Brea, “You on the other hand, I would thoroughly enjoy killing. However, right now you are still useful to me. You are the bait that will lure little Miss Majestic right into my trap. All I have to do is wait and she will come.”

  “She let you go,” Brea shook her head, staring hard at Lareina, “Talk about sore losers. It doesn’t matter; she’ll kill you anyway. You’re powerless.”

  “Not entirely,” Lareina threw her hands out towards Brea. Her hands shook wickedly as she mumbled an unintelligible string of words.

  Brea suddenly grabbed her throat and started choking. She made a horrible gasping noise and her fingers clawed at her throat as she fought to get air. She fell against the brick wall and slid down; her eyes wildly pleading with Lyssa to help her.

  “Stop it!” Lyssa shouted.

  Lareina dropped her hands, freeing Brea from her deadly grasp, “I don’t know how you are my child at all. You will change, though. Once you get a taste for black magic you will never be the same. It’s amazing.”

  “I would never mess with black magic.”

  “I thought that, too.” She smiled and looked at Brea, “Just so you know, I do not fear your pathetic friend. I have the entire Waevern army behind me and they can’t wait to see her blood flow.”

  Brea’s eyes widened, “You’re with The Waevern?”

  “I have been quite busy since I left the island.” She turned to leave the room.

  “Wait,” Lyssa said. “How do I know you really my mother? Everything you said was a lie. You haven’t been running from the Clutch your whole life because you killed someone. You didn’t give me up to protect me.” She felt a strange combination of emotions, “Why did you really give me up? If you were the True Elementris, ruler of those born of the Element, why did you give me up? It doesn’t make any sense!”

  Lareina let out an exasperated breath, “I did do it to protect you, Lyssa. As the True Elementris, there were many who would have loved to see me fall. You were a weakness that I could not afford to people to know I had.”

  Lyssa simply looked at her for a long moment, then asked, “Who was my real father, tell me that.”

  “Your father is dead, Lyssa. Why does that even matter?”

  “I just want to know. How did he die?”

  “I killed him,” she said, with a bored look on her face. “He deserved to die, trust me.”

  “Why?”

  Lareina let out a frustrated breath, “Because he betrayed me. He was obsessed with that Vangeretta girl.”

  “Who? Ava?”

  “No.” She shook her head and went kind of pale, “Joyce, Nadia’s daughter. Your father got sucked in by the Vangeretta Curse. He lost his mind. He obsessed over Joyce constantly. They were sneaking around together. I’d just found out I was pregnant with you when I found the letters and the pictures of her.”

  “You killed him because he fell in love with another woman?”

  “No, I killed him because it was the right thing to do. The curse made him crazy. It must have been because Joyce did not accept her magic. Instead of dying he just continued to obsess over her. He was only a shell of the man I once knew. Trust me,” she sneered, “I did him a favor.”

  Lyssa was stunned but she didn’t have time to dwell on it because the door suddenly flew open and Alec and Thomas burst into the room. Ava was right behind them.

  Lareina spun, looked over her shoulder and smiled at Ava.

  Chapter Fourteen…Losing control

  …Ava…

  Ava couldn’t even blink as she stared at the face she’d hoped to never to see again. What the hell was she doing here? Here, at the headquarters of The Waevern. She couldn’t even speak as Lareina smiled wickedly.

  She glanced at Brea and Lyssa chained to the floor and moved quickly. “Are you okay?” she asked as she dropped down beside Brea.

  “Yes, she’s Lyssa’s mother. It wasn’t Lyssa’s fault, Ava. You have to save her, too.” Brea said.

  Brea was crying, “I’m sorry I took the ring, Ava. Please don’t hate me. I was sure Lyssa was bad. I took the ring so I could prove it. I knew you were too nice to see it. I was sure she would expose you all and I had to do something. I was wrong though. Everything just went wrong.”

  “I could never hate you, Brea.” Ava said, as she pulled at the chains around Brea’s wrists. “It’s okay. I forgive you.” She tugged at the chain lock. It was huge and looked impossible.

  “Lareina has the key.” Brea said.

  Ava looked over her shoulder. Lareina was moving towards her; confident, wickedly evil and looking positively gleeful.

  Alec, Thomas, and Shawn rushed to surround Lareina while Bianca moved to help Ava figure out the mess of chains and locks.

  “Use your fire element to burn it,” Bianca said.

  “No,” Ava said, “It’ll burn them.”

  “You can either burn them or leave them, because in about five seconds all of those Waevern soldiers are going to catch up to us and there are way more of them than there are of us.”

  Ava looked down at the chains. “Stretch away from it as far apart as you can; I’ll try to burn the main lock.”

  Brea shook her head, “She said you can’t use magic in here.”

  Ava ignored her and tried anyway. The fire was definitely not at its full power, but it heated the lock turning it a glowing red.

  “Move!” Thomas said. He was carrying a big piece of metal that looked to be the head that had broken off of some kind of old hammer.

  Ava slid out of the way and he hit the lock with it and the lock fell apart.

  Brea and Lyssa were still shackled, but at least they were not attached to the floor anymore.

  An eerie sound suddenly took all of their attention. Ava stood and turned just in time to see Waevern soldiers pour into the room. There were so many of them, too many to count. Alec, Thomas, and Shawn tried to block them from Ava. Bianca lunged forward to join their line. They fou
ght with all they had. With the distraction Lareina had freed herself from them, and was now ducking through the fight to get to Ava.

  “Get up!” Ava said, helping Brea to her feet. Lyssa hadn’t wasted any time. She was up and on her feet by the time Ava turned to her. They needed to move, but the chains were obviously heavy and there was no way they would be able to run with them. Ava looked at Lareina as she moved towards them. “Hurry,” she said, trying to help them move.

  Lareina reached out and twisted her fingers, screaming something over the roar of fighting in the room.

  Ava felt her throat tighten and her knees go weak. She tried with all her might to pull the Elements to her. They came, but in little spurts.

  As she went to her knees, she knew it was useless. The Waevern dragged her guards to the opposite side of the room and chained them to the floor. They chained Ava next and the girls after that. Bianca was chained behind Ava.

  Lareina nodded at the guards and they left the room, obviously under her command. She walked back and forth across the room with a satisfied smile on her face.

  “So, what now?” Ava asked, “Are you like the leader of The Waevern or something?”

  “Not the leader, no. I am however, second in command.” She stopped in the middle of the floor blocking Ava’s view of Alec, “You see, there are people that are meant to be in powerful positions and then there are people who are, well,” she tilted her head, “like you.”

  “So what happens now?” Ava asked. “You’re going to sacrifice me?”

  “Oh, yes. It will be a great celebration. I’m going to kill each of your friends first, though. I wouldn’t want you to miss any of the fun.”

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me she was here?” A familiar voice echoed from somewhere outside the room. The door opened and Blake Sanders walked into the room. Agitated, he continued to speak as he moved towards Ava. “You said I could have her! You promised me that you wouldn’t hurt her.”