Elementals 3: The Head of Medusa

by Michelle Madow

  “Earlier tonight… you wanted to try healing that statue,” he said, his jaw set in determination. “The man we were looking at, when security told you not to touch him. You said there was a chance it could work. Have you tried that yet? With Kate?”

  “Yes.” My voice cracked when I said it. “It didn’t work. But maybe if I tried harder, if I had your help—if I had everyone’s help—I could do it.”

  “What do you mean?” Danielle limped over, cradling her arm and barely putting any weight on her left foot. Those injuries must have happened before—or when—Medusa threw her into the statue. Which made it even more impressive that she’d ran at Medusa and sliced off her head when she did.

  “Back in the cave, with the harpy,” I started. “I barely had any energy left after healing myself from the fall down the cliff. But Kate needed me then, so you all leant me your energy so I could heal her. What if we tried the same thing again now?”

  “It’s dangerous,” Blake said, placing his hand on my shoulder. “You can’t take any of our energy for yourself. But you handled it then, so I know you can handle it now.”

  Chris got up from the floor, stepping in the puddle of his own blood as he made his way toward me. “You know I’m in,” he said, placing his hand on my other shoulder. “Kate risked herself to save my life. I’ll do anything to save her now.”

  “I’m in, too,” Danielle said, placing her hand on my arm.

  “Ethan?” I asked, turning to look at him. Like the others, he was bruised and cut up—but nothing life threatening. He would be able to help if he wanted to.

  “All you have to do is place your palm on Nicole, and open up your energy to her,” Blake explained. “Give what you can, and stop when it feels like too much.”

  “It’s not dangerous?” Ethan asked.

  “No,” Blake said. “Not for us. Only for Nicole. Because witches aren’t meant to directly take the energy of other witches. Doing so would stop her body from producing its own energy again, and make her reliant upon the energy of others forever. But she was able to do it once—”

  “You don’t have to explain any more.” Ethan stepped forward, resting his hand on my other arm. “If doing this can save Kate, then of course I’m in.”

  “Thank you.” I nodded at him, finding a new respect for him now that I felt like he was truly a part of our team. He nodded back, and then I turned back around to face Kate.

  I reached for her hand—the one that hadn’t been holding the sword—and wrapped mine around it. Without access to her sword hand, I placed my other hand on her heart. Then I closed my eyes and reached out, feeling the white energy that I’d gathered before. I pulled it toward me, but then reached even farther, pushing past the limits of the building around us and up to what felt like the sky itself, using the energy from the others to gather more white energy than I’d ever gathered before. This time, I didn’t just fill my own body with it. I imagined the energy filling their bodies too, collecting inside all five of us, connecting to me where their palms touched my skin. I gathered more and more and more, until the orbs of white energy glowed with so much heat that they warmed the room itself.

  I gathered the energy until I felt like I might explode from the sheer force of it, and then I released it all into Kate. I still couldn’t feel her spirit under my touch, but I didn’t care. I forced the energy toward her anyway. If I believed this would work, then it had to work. I wouldn’t accept anything else.

  I pushed as much of the energy as I could out of my body, feeling colder and colder as it left my system, and then, when only a tiny bit was left, everything went dark.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  I woke up in a bed, although I didn’t know whose bed it was. It was too big to be mine. I rolled over, not opening my eyes yet. Because I’d just been having a wonderful dream—I didn’t remember much about it, except that I was at the beach with my family, and Blake was there. Apollo was there, too. I knew him in the dream, and it wasn’t that we’d just met—I’d known him for a long time.

  I didn’t want the dream to be over. What would I be returning to? Burrowing deeper into the covers, I recalled everything that had happened recently—the fight with Medusa and her sisters, being poisoned by gray energy, Kate turning to stone, and then trying to heal her.

  What happened after I tried to heal her? I tried to remember, but everything after that was blank.

  “Nicole?” someone asked—Danielle. “Are you up?”

  “Yeah,” I said, although it came out all scratchy—as if I hadn’t had any water in days. I opened my eyes and saw a slanted wooden roof above. Danielle sat in an armchair across the room, a book open in her lap. “Where am I?” I asked her.

  “Darius’s guest room.” She reached for her phone, typed on it for a few seconds, and sent what I guessed was a text message. “We’ve all been switching off watching you so you wouldn’t be alone when you woke up. There’s water on the nightstand, if you want it.” She motioned to the nightstand, where there was indeed a glass of water. She made no move to get up herself.

  I remembered a time a few weeks ago, when I’d felt just like this and had woken up in an unfamiliar bed with no memory of how I’d gotten there. That time, Kate was in the room with me. She’d handed me the glass of water herself, and when I’d gulped it down in seconds, she hurried to get me more.

  “Kate,” I said her name, reaching for the water and guzzling it down. “Where is she? Is she okay? Was I able to heal her?”

  Danielle refused to meet my eyes. “I shouldn’t say anything until the others are here…” she said.

  “Just tell me.” I already felt much stronger than I had when first waking up, thanks to the water. “Is Kate okay, or not?”

  “No.” Danielle shook her head, her chin trembling. “You tried—we all helped you try—but it didn’t work. I’m sorry.”

  My heart dropped. How had it not worked? I really, truly believed I would be able to save her. I thought I had saved her. I’d harnessed more energy than I ever had before—more energy than I thought was physically possible. It had to have worked.

  Because if I couldn’t heal her… how were we supposed to get Kate back?

  “Where is she?” I sat up, finishing the rest of the water. It must have been infused with orange energy, because I could already feel the added strength rushing through my veins. “You didn’t leave her there, in that place. Did you?”

  “Of course not.” Danielle curled her lip, clearly as disgusted at that idea as I was.

  “Then where is she?” I asked again. “What happened after I tried to heal her?”

  “The others will be here soon,” Danielle said, checking her watch. “Ten minutes, at the most. I think it’s best you wait for them to hear any more.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  I stopped in the bathroom to freshen up, and when I went downstairs to the living room, everyone was waiting—including Hypatia and Jason.

  “You.” I stopped in my tracks, glaring at Jason. “You put gray energy in our drinks during the party! If it wasn’t for you, then Kate wouldn’t be—”

  “I promise you, I didn’t put gray energy in your drinks,” he said calmly. “But if you take a seat, we’ll tell you our theory about who did.”

  I stayed where I was. Because if Jason didn’t put the gray energy in our drinks, then who did? Surely not Hypatia—not after everything she’d been through with us in Greece. The only other people I’d accepted drinks from were Blake and Ethan. And it couldn’t have been either of them, because they were affected by the gray energy, too.

  Blake walked to where I was standing, taking my hand in his. “I promise we can trust him,” he said, and he sounded so convinced that I had no choice but to believe him. “Come sit down and hear him out. Okay?”

  “Fine,” I said, following him to the sofa and sitting down next to him. I kept my hand in his, not wanting to let go. After what happened to Kate, he was the only anchor I had to keep me going. “How ar
e you healed?” I asked, noticing for the first time that all of his injuries were gone. The others were healed, too.

  “It happened when you were trying to heal Kate,” Blake said. “The white energy didn’t work on her, and since we were all holding on to you, we were healed instead.”

  “I can’t believe it didn’t work on her.” I shook my head and looked down at the floor, the reality of it all still not completely sunk in. “I put everything I had into healing her. I’ve never gathered that much white energy before—ever. I thought for sure…” My throat choked up, and I had to swallow to compose myself. “I thought for sure that it would work.”

  “We know you tried,” Chris said, and when I looked at him, I noticed that the usual light in his eyes was gone. “I don’t blame you for not being able to heal her. None of us do. What Kate did… she did it to save me. I’m the one who should be dead right now. Not her.”

  “No.” Hypatia said. “Don’t say that. What Kate did was her choice. She wouldn’t want you to wish it had happened to you instead.”

  “We’ll never know what she would have wanted me to feel, would we have?” Chris asked, his voice sharp. “Because she’s gone. Forever.”

  We all looked down, the finality of his words echoing through the room.

  “I don’t remember anything after trying to heal her,” I finally broke the silence. “What happened afterward? Danielle told me that we didn’t leave Kate there…”

  “Ethan called us and told us to come back inside,” Hypatia said. “He wouldn’t tell us what happened—only that you all had Medusa’s head. We came in, saw what happened to Kate, and were filled in on the details of the fight. We heard about the gray energy, and can only assume that it was put into your drinks during the party.”

  “By who?” I asked. “You and Jason were the only ones who got us drinks.”

  “Medusa knew that the group of you were going to be there, because of the information given to her by the primordial sea gods—her parents,” Jason said. “We can only assume that she took extra precaution by hiring a bartender who was a witch—maybe multiple bartenders—and instructing them to put gray energy in your drinks.”

  “Wouldn’t he—or she—had to have been a strong witch?” I asked. “To be able to affect demigods?”

  “Yes.” Darius nodded. “The most likely scenario is that Medusa recruited a demigod for the job. It turns out that there are more demigods out there than we ever realized.”

  “How’s that possible?” I asked. “Wouldn’t we notice if tons of demigods were running around using their powers?”

  “As you know, the gods come down in disguise and have affairs that can result in children,” he said, and I nodded, since the gods were notorious for their affairs. “Since we’ve mainly lived in a time of peace, the gods usually blocked the powers of their demigod children, so that they can live normal lives. But at the start of the New Year, those powers started to unlock, and on the night of the Olympian Comet, that block went away completely and all of their powers became active again.”

  “But what about Ethan?” I asked, turning to him. “You knew you were a demigod. You and your sister had even met your father before. He gave you the pendant.”

  “He gave it to us on the Land of the Lotus Eaters.” Ethan reached for his pendant, as if he needed reminding that it was still there. “That was where we first met him. But because of the lotus fruit, I don’t remember any more than that. Before I was stuck on that island, Rachael and I had never met him, and we had no idea that we were demigods. We had no sense of time on the Land of the Lotus Eaters, but we probably came into our powers on the night of the comet, just like all the others.”

  “Most of these demigods are confused,” Hypatia said. “They don’t know what they are or why they have their abilities. Our only guess is that Medusa managed to find a demigod and convinced them to work for her.”

  “How would she have found a demigod?” I asked. “Can she sense us?”

  “From what the others have told us, she was able to smell it in your blood,” Hypatia said. “Which is a definite concern, especially if other monsters can do the same.”

  “It certainly is,” Darius agreed. “But despite everything, we can’t lose sight of your mission. Now that you have Medusa’s head, you’ll be able to use it to turn Typhon to stone, and then we can figure out how to seal the portal to Kerberos. Once you succeed, it’ll be up to us to find these rogue demigods. We’ll have to let them know who and what they are, so that they understand what’s going on and can learn how to protect themselves.”

  “Okay.” I ran my fingers through my hair, my head spinning with all this new information. “But what about Kate? If she isn’t where we left her in the gallery, then where is she?”

  “She’s in the training room, in the basement,” Darius answered. “Hypatia created the portal back here from LA, and both you and Kate were carried through.”

  “So you think there’s a chance we can get her back?” I sat straighter, hope filling my chest. “You wouldn’t have brought her back if you thought there was no chance, right?”

  “We honestly don’t know,” Hypatia said gently. “I’ve never heard of any of Medusa’s creations returning to what they once were. But I’d also never heard of witches being able to control the elements. So we couldn’t leave her there, just in case there’s any chance to reverse her condition.”

  “I did everything I could.” I studied my hands, remembering the buzz of all that white energy running through my body. “I don’t know what else I could have done. And I don’t want to give up on her. I can’t give up on her.”

  “Good,” Darius said. “Because we’re not giving up on her, either. We’re going to do what I believe Kate would suggest if she were here—we’re going to ask the Book, and find out if there’s a way we can save her.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  I situated myself in front of the Book, hopeful that this would work.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Darius said.

  I took a deep breath—ready, but scared at the same time. Because if this failed, then that was it. There would be nothing else we could do. But I couldn’t stall any longer. Everyone was staring at me, and it wasn’t fair to make them wait.

  “Is there any way to reverse the effect of Medusa’s power?” I asked, both of my palms placed on the cover of the Book. My voice wavered, but I swallowed down the tears. Because crying meant admitting that Kate was gone—it meant giving up hope that we could save her. And I refused to give up yet.

  My palms tingled, which meant one thing—the Book was answering my question.

  “Well?” Chris asked, tapping the pads of his fingers together. “Is anything happening?”

  “I think so.” I pulled my hand off the Book, staring at the ancient, leather cover. Everyone looked at me to continue, so I opened it, leafing through the pages to find the chapter about Medusa. Just as I suspected, more text had been added since we’d seen it last.

  I scanned through it, my heart dropping when I read the additional lines.

  The effect of Medusa is irreversible. No creature turned to stone by Medusa can return to their original form.

  I pushed the Book to Chris, unable to bring myself to say it out loud.

  He stared at it for a few seconds, as if trying to force it to change with sheer willpower. “No.” He used his power to fling the Book across the coffee table, letting it fall to the floor. “The Book’s wrong. It has to be wrong.”

  Danielle picked the Book up and opened it back to the chapter about Medusa. She read it, her lips pressed in a flat line, and then passed the Book around so everyone else could see it for themselves.

  Darius was the last one to read it, and once finished, he closed the Book and placed it back on the coffee table. “Well,” he said, laying his glasses down on the cover. “I suppose that’s our answer, then.”

  “No.” I shook my head, refusing to believe it. “She can’t be…” I was about
to say dead, but a flood of tears came out instead. They didn’t stop, so I buried my head in my hands, not wanting anyone to see me cry. Once I got control of myself, I sniffed a few times, raised my head, and wiped the tears from my cheeks. “The Book’s only one source,” I said. “Yes, it’s been right about most everything so far, but what if this time, it’s wrong? What if we can still save her?”

  “I don’t want to discount the possibility,” Darius said. “And I promise that I’ll look into this further. I’ll search through the entire New Alexandrian library, if that’s what it takes. Kate was a student of mine for over a year—she was one of the smartest, most promising students I’ve ever taught. If there’s a way to bring her back, I’ll do my best to find it.”

  “Thank you.” I sniffed again, wiping my nose with the end of my sleeve.

  “I’ll go with you to New Alexandria,” Danielle offered. “If that’s okay with you.”

  “Yes.” Darius nodded. “I would appreciate your help very much. After you close the portal to Kerberos, of course.”

  “Of course,” Danielle agreed.

  “I hate to ruin this moment, but as the Head Elder who’s been in charge of this mission, I’m afraid that I must,” Hypatia broke in. “I know that Kate was a core part of your group, and that moving on without her will be difficult. Once this mission is complete, you will all have ample time to grieve.”

  “She’s not dead,” Chris said, glaring at Hypatia. “You heard Darius. He’s going to find a way to fix this.”

  “Yes,” Hypatia said. “If there’s a way to fix this, he will find it. But that will take time—weeks, months, or even years. And we’re facing war right now. If the portal isn’t sealed and the Titans escape, there will be far more casualties than this.” She paused, looking around at each of us. “In the time that I knew Kate, I knew this about her—she wouldn’t want what has happened to her to stop you from completing your mission. She would want you to do everything you can to stop this war.”