Earth

by Shauna Granger

  “Yeah, maybe,” I said, gripping the steering wheel tightly as we turned onto a road with much higher water levels. “Ugh! Sometimes I swear to God I hate California!” I said loud and angrily.

  “Dude, this never happens here,” Jodi said confused.

  “I know! So the stupid city makes the roads dip down in the middle so the water collects rather than runs off. The roads should come up in the middle so the water goes to the gutter. Freaking idiots!” I had lost what little patience I had in the morning; Jodi and Steven just stared ahead. At this rate I knew we’d be getting out into two or three feet of water when we parked.

  I merged into the line of cars making their way into the high school parking lot at less than a mile an hour and just sighed. I had given up on getting to class on time when the water level became high enough to be a river. We inched forward with the other cars until finally coming around the corner on to the side road that led to the parking lot. There were a lot of full cars passing us on the other side with disgruntled drivers.

  “Dude, look,” Steven said, pointing towards the parking lot entrance, “they’re turning people away.” And sure enough I saw a crossing guard and campus police with flashlights forcing people to turn around in the driveway to leave.

  “You don’t think they’re gonna make us park somewhere else and walk farther in this crap, do you?” Jodi asked sounding as angry as I was getting. I pulled into the driveway, rolled my window down a little.

  “Excuse me?” I called over the wind and rain to the officer directing traffic; he pretended not to hear me. “Excuse me, but where are we supposed to park?” I yelled a little louder.

  “Where ever you want, school’s closed, it’s flooded. Now move along, you’re causing a backup,” the officer explained.

  “Nice!” I heard Steven say over my shoulder. I cranked the wheel and turned us out of the driveway and back onto the road. “’Bout time they made up for the snow days kids get back East.”

  “Dude, if Shay’s right and this is because of this weekend, this isn’t a holiday,” Jodi admonished. Steven sunk back into his seat like a scolded child.

  “Then shouldn’t we be doing something about it? We are Elementals after all,” Steven asked, sounding father away than he actually was.

  “I don’t know…” I said. “I’m reluctant to cast against something I don’t know much about.”

  “We don’t have to cast against the casters, we can just try to do something about the weather,” Steven said, still not coming forward like he usually did.

  “Yeah, it’d really just be calling a balance to things,” Jodi said. I chewed my lip, staring at the blurred red light in front of me. I hadn’t automatically headed home. I had debated going to see Deb again, but I knew getting to the store would be hell. “Shay?” Jodi asked, touching my wrist. The light had changed and I hadn’t noticed.

  “Sorry,” I eased into the intersection, not wanting to cause the water to rise up in waves around us. “Even if we wanted to, where could we possibly cast in all this mess?” I asked.

  “Maybe we could make it work in your room,” Jodi said, a distant look on her face as she thought.

  “I still don’t know how I feel about doing this without really knowing what’s going on. We may just make it worse.” I came to another red light. In this traffic I didn’t think we’d make it anywhere.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. I’d like to know what it means,” Steven said, changing his mind. “Should we go see Deb?”

  “She’s been really reluctant to give us any information so far, I don’t think she’d answer our questions now,” Jodi said and I nodded in agreement. “Ok, I agree with Shay. If we meddle in something and not know what’s going on, then we could just make it worse.”

  I had to practically creep home, not wanting to get us stranded in the water because I had flooded something. I gripped the steering wheel tight enough to make my numbing fingers ache with the effort. I didn’t know what we were going to do but I wanted to be home, under the protection of my shields, free to think clearly.

  Another forty-five minutes later and we were finally pulling up to the curb at my house. The water was so high it had come over the curb and the sidewalk and front yard were under a foot of water. We waded up to the front door. I fumbled with the keys, my fingers growing numb because I had forgotten gloves. We dripped uncontrollably just inside the front door, shivering despite the many layers of fabric we each had on.

  “Don’t move,” my mom said as she walked past us into the hallway. I heard the linen closet open and a moment later she was back, carrying half a dozen towels. We each took one and she laid out the rest on the floor. We stepped on to the towels and toweled off like we’d just come in from swimming. “Its about time, I wanted you home sooner than this.” My mom had her hands balled into fists on her hips, but I knew she wasn’t really mad.

  “Dude, we left the school almost an hour ago, trust me, you didn’t want me even close to the speed limit in this crap,” I said, wringing out water from the ends of my hair, now so wet it looked black.

  “I think you two should call your parents and let them know you’re here,” she said, looking at Steven and Jodi in turn.

  “We called on our way over,” Steven said with his best smile that most moms loved.

  “I’ve got a kettle of hot water on the stove if you guys want tea or hot chocolate,” my mom said, taking our towels from us and walking out to the laundry room to dispose of them.

  Jodi and I started down the hall for my room while Steven went to the kitchen. Steven and Jodi were here so often my parents looked at them like adopted children, so Steven felt comfortable enough to raid the kitchen and make three cups of hot chocolate for us without me being there. Jodi followed me to my room. I could feel her anxious aura pressing against my back like a hand shoving me down the hall.

  Once inside, we left the door ajar just half an inch so Steven could push it open once the drinks were ready. We both peeled off our coats and hats and boots in silence, letting it all fall to a pile on the floor just inside the door. I shook out my hair and then combed it, pulling it back into a high ponytail before picking up the pieces of clothing and hanging them up so they’d dry. Jodi was at my stereo in the corner looking for music to mask our conversation from prying parent ears. I had gone to my bookshelves and was pulling books off them, piling them into my arms.

  My room was the second largest in the house and was big enough for my queen sized bed, a desk and chair, two bookshelves – one loaded down with books and nick-knacks, the other was a corner bookshelf with my T.V. and stereo set up on it – and an armchair with a small table next to it. It was almost crowded, but came off more cozy than anything else. I put a stack of books on the foot of the bed, the table by the chair, and on the desk so that each of us would have material to read through.

  Steven came in the room, two mugs held by the handles in one hand and one in the other. He pushed the door closed carefully with his foot. I had claimed the armchair and Jodi was stretched out on my bed on her stomach already, leaving him the desk. Steven wisely put all three cups down on the desk before trying to hand either of us a steaming cup so he could get a better hold on them. We didn’t need to talk. We each knew we were looking for anything to explain this weather, even though we didn’t really know what it was that we were looking for.

  Two hours and three empty mugs later, Jodi sat up on the bed, a book open in her lap, “Hey, listen to this,” she said, settling back into the pillows, brow knitted it concentration. “A spell to bring a storm. It even gives ingredients for lightening and wind.” She looked up hopefully at us.

  “But I thought we agreed this storm was a result of a spell gone wrong, not that the storm was conjured,” Steven said, looking a little confused.

  “We did,” I said, putting aside the book I had been reading and picked up another. “Nice try, babe.” Jodi sighed and tossed the book aside, grabbing at another one. I had a small collec
tion of “black magic” spell books, not because we ever used them, but because it was good to know what weapons your enemy is using. If you don’t, how can you expect to fight back effectively?

  I had piled these books for myself, not that I didn’t trust the other two to look them over, I just had a very strong sense of protection towards them and didn’t like the thought of them even touching the books. I could feel the frown on my face like a mask of wrinkles. My stomach knotted and unknotted as I skimmed through the pages. Many of the spells offended me, but I held onto that emotion tightly, glad that they did, knowing how seductive these spells were meant to be.

  I was reading for more than an hour when I came across a summoning spell that nearly made me drop the book. I stared wide-eyed at the title of the spell, tiny chills racing up my spine, setting the hairs on the back of my neck on end and my stomach to turn. I thought I was in danger of throwing up right there in the middle of the room. I took a slow and steadying breath as quietly as I could. I could feel the cold sweat on my forehead and chanced a glance at Jodi and Steven, but they hadn’t noticed anything and were still reading carefully. I looked back down at the book and knew I had found the spell that haunted my nightmares: a summoning of a demon helper. I was very aware of the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears; I had that horrible feeling of falling backwards.

  I turned the book to look at the title of it and found that I had picked up a book that was an amalgamation of black arts, no one deity or concept to streamline the spells inside, just pure self-aggrandizement and evil. I had bought this book because, with each spell, it gave a counter spell or curse for people like me that wanted to combat black magic. This book contained exactly what we were looking for. With blind determination I flipped to the table of contents, scanning quickly through the list of spells and charms listed there until I came to a sub-section of spells for the caster to invoke the power of the dark gods and goddesses.

  “Guys… I think I found something.”

  Chapter 12

  “You have got to be kidding me!” Steven said outraged, nearly falling out of his chair.

  “Shhhhhh!” Jodi hissed at him, putting her index finger in front of her pursed lips, looking anxiously at my bedroom door. We all waited a few tense moments, expecting my mother to come bursting through. When she didn’t, Jodi sat up on the bed, swinging her legs over the edge and glared at Steven, who seemed to melt under her stare.

  “No, I’m not kidding. I feel like all of my nerve endings are on fire, this has to be it. Look, it even has side effect warnings.” I turned the book around and pointed at the end of the page. The spell itself was over three pages long with a page full of instructions and side effects listed. “See? Weather abnormalities!” I said, trying very hard not to grind my teeth.

  “But, Shay, this is to actually summon Lucifer. Is anyone really that stupid?” Steven was trembling a little, trying not to show how scared this made him.

  “It’s not to summon Lucifer,” I said. I stood up and started pacing my room. Jodi had the book now and was reading over the actual summoning. I had only scanned it. The profane language had bothered me so much I wasn’t ready to read it thoroughly yet.

  “What?” he asked.

  “It’s not for Lucifer, it’s for any god of the Underworld.” I was chewing on my thumbnail without really noticing what I was doing. I saw Steven’s confused face as I spun around to walk back again. “Um, ok, basically it doesn’t name a god or figure specifically, it only calls on any powerful figure from the Underworld. Because you were raised Catholic, you would interpret that, with good reason, as Lucifer. But that doesn’t mean everyone would.” I was talking with my hands, waving them around in the air in front of me, over my head and every which way in my stressed state trying to get Steven to understand. “But really, most gods have more important things to do than to answer the prayers or summoning of mere mortals. So really, what this moron probably did was opened a gate hoping for a god and got some low ranking minion.”

  “A demon?” Steven asked.

  “Yeah, but I have a feeling they probably got a power hungry one and a tasty little meat-puppet was just too tempting to pass by. Now the question is,” I said a little more loudly, turning suddenly on my heel to face them both; Jodi even glanced up from the book to look at me, “what kind of bargain did they strike in order for the caster to get what they wanted out of the demon?”

  “Well, according to this…” Jodi said, running her finger down the list of the incantation, “the caster would actually take the essence of the object into them, absorbing their power for their own.” Her brows knitted together like something confused her.

  “What?” Steven asked. “What? What is it?” he asked more anxiously when she didn’t respond quickly enough.

  “I don’t know. It’s just this wording… How could anyone be so careless and miss this?”

  “What?” I echoed Steven’s question.

  “I don’t really want to say it…” Jodi’s voice had dropped in volume. I understood; I hadn’t wanted to read the thing at all right now, let alone quote anything from it. We all firmly believed words held power, and if you think that way, just saying part of the spell out loud felt like it would give it power.

  “So just tell us the gist of what it means,” I offered.

  “Oh, ok,” she said relieved. “Basically, it sounds like you’re allowing the thing to possess you in order to get its powers.” She furrowed her brow at the book. “Why would anyone take that chance?” she whispered the question, talking more to herself at that point.

  “Well, if they think they can control it, they probably weren’t worried about the possible repercussions,” I said a little angrily.

  “Yeah, but once you lose control of the thing it gets you in the bargain,” Jodi said and I could hear the fear in her voice.

  “What?” Steven fell out of his chair and looked up at Jodi with wide, terrified eyes. “What do you mean ‘it gets you in the bargain?’”

  “If you read the words very carefully, it says that you have to give yourself over to the demon truly experience its power and then at the end here,” she started to point to a stanza in the spell and turn the book to Steven, but he recoiled from it, scooting backwards until he hit his head on my desk. “It says that servant and master become one and well…” she shrugged a little.

  “It takes over your body,” I finished for her, reaching to help Steven up. “Basically the spell tricks the greedy into thinking they’re getting all the power in the world, but really you’re just borrowing power and as repayment you give up your life immediately after you lose control of the power.”

  “What makes you think it’s not for Lucifer?” Steven asked with a trembling voice.

  “Because Lucifer is a Christian belief. There are plenty of gods and minor gods and powerful demons in the Underworld to choose from. And if Lucifer is as powerful a god in the Underworld as most think, don’t you think he’s a little busy to be answering to a summoning?” I said, hearing myself get more and more excited as I went on.

  “Even if he thought it was amusing and was willing to answer the summoning, he wouldn’t go himself, he’d send a lackey. God’s got his angels, Lucifer’s got his minions,” I said as I placed a steadying hand on Steven’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “Honey, there are scarier things out there, and down there, than Lucifer. I know that’s hard to understand, but really, whoever this caster is, worries me a lot more right now than Lucifer does.”

  “How can you say that?” Steven’s voice was so quiet if I hadn’t been leaning close to his face I might not have heard him.

  “Because this person is messy, greedy, and is trying to open the gates of the Underworld and doesn’t realize the consequences. Lucifer, like most gods, is a businessman; he wouldn’t risk his power for one mortal. But this person, right here, right now, is planning on killing someone and that’s what scares me.”

  “How do you know he’s gonna kill someone?�
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  “Because Steven,” Jodi said, “it’s in the last stanza of the spell. You spill the blood of an equally powerful innocent. What do you think that means?” she asked looking up at me.

  “An equally powerful innocent?” I asked and Jodi nodded at me, pointing to the line she’d read. “Someone with a lot of faith in God, maybe?” I wasn’t sure, but that steeled my resolve to stop this. “Whatever it means it’s obviously referring to someone who wouldn’t be sacrificed willingly, so we have to do something.”

  “What happens to the demon once the person is sacrificed?” Steven asked, his voice breaking.

  “If I’m reading this right,” Jodi said, “then the demon has full access to our world, like an un-exercisable possession with all his powers. It would be free to do whatever he wants.”

  “Why would someone do this?” Steven asked.

  “Because the spell is worded in such a way that it makes it sound like you get the demon’s powers and dominion in Hell and on earth, not that you’d be giving up your body for a demon to take up residence,” I said. “I mean world domination would sound quite appealing to a lot of people.”

  “Ok, Shay, I think I owe you an apology…” Jodi’s voice trailed off. I turned to look at her and saw that she was staring intently at the book again. “The warnings… it says to be especially careful when choosing your final sacrifice and to avoid the use of anyone whose eyes you cannot meet. So even if it is Jensen, he’s not after you.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked, taking the book from her, reading over the passage she’d found. “‘Beware your final sacrifice. Those whose eyes you cannot meet may see your true form and will have power over you, turning he who sacrifices into the sacrificed.’ Well that’s interesting.” I started reading through the warnings more carefully then. “Did you see this? It has to be a woman for the final sacrifice. ‘She who is the barer of life on this plane.’” I handed the book back to Jodi. “Well, at least Deb was right; we’re looking for a man. Probably one in a relationship.”