Elemental Tears: An Urban Fantasy Series (The Eldritch Files Book 8)

by Phaedra Weldon

  "What're you thinking?" Tas said as she stood beside him. Red, white and blue lights flashed off the buildings in the late morning shade.

  "I'm thinking…that I think this is one of Arden's businesses. See that little symbol up there on the right-hand side of the sign?" He pointed to the tiny pentagrams with the crossed swords. He'd noticed it a few months ago on some of Arden Vervain's properties and asked about it. Kyle said it was the Vervain family motto, but didn't say what it meant.

  "Should we call her?"

  That's when they heard her to the left. "Out of my way! This is my—Sweet Lord and Lady!"

  Oh geez.

  Crwys and Tas raced to her as she saw the gruesome scene left on the store's doorstep. She nearly went down on her knees when Quan stepped in and caught her. She put her hand on his arms and tried to pull away. "Let me see her…I have to know who it is."

  "We'll find out, Miss Vervain," Quan said. "But right now, I can't have you contaminating the crime scene."

  She turned and looked up at him, and for the first time Crwys could recall, the woman's haughty expression softened. Even Quan looked a little surprised when he looked down at her. He let her go and she stood there looking up at him. Crwys and Tas glanced at each other and then Tas held up her hand. "Quan, you know Arden Vervain?"

  "It's hard not to know who she is in this town," he said. "Miss Vervain—"

  "Arden. Call me Arden."

  "Uhh, Arden. Do you think the victim is someone you know?"

  Arden licked her lips as she dragged her gaze from Quan and looked back at the victim as CSI technicians in their coats swarmed over the area. "I…I don't know. She's wearing a bracelet. Can I see it?"

  Quan motioned to one of the techs. The bracelet was photographed, tagged, removed and placed in a bag before it was handed to Quan. He signed the bag with a pen and let her see it. "Just don't remove it from the bag."

  She examined it through the plastic. Crwys and Tas watched intently before he finally realized his partner was missing and turned to catch a glimpse of Levi. Ashur?

  I'm here. I thought I caught something…familiar.

  Like what?

  I don't know. A whiff of something. A cologne I've smelled before.

  Like a men's cologne?

  Yes.

  Is it the one I smelled in Sam’s office?

  I don’t know.

  That's when Arden let out a cry. "It's Celene! No…no…no…not Celene! She was only twenty years old!"

  Celene? Crwys looked back at her and frowned. "Arden, who is Celene?"

  She handed the bag back to Quan and reached out to Tas and Crwys, putting a hand on each of their arms. And for the first time since he'd known her, he heard her thoughts loud and clear.

  Quan put a hand on Crwys's shoulder. "Maybe someone should take Miss Vervain home?"

  "No," Arden said as she let Tas and Crwys go. "No. I want to stay and help where I can. I have her personal information. Might be helpful in getting a positive ID. And then I have to let the…group know."

  Crwys and Tas glanced at each other.

  "I need to speak to the two of you." Arden's expression shifted when she looked at Quan. "Alone."

  "I'll let the officers know you may have an ID on the victim," Quan said and moved away.

  The three of them stepped away from the immediate scene, but not outside the police barricade.

  Once they were behind the CSI van, Arden held out her hands and a flash of light caught Crwys off guard. His ears popped and as he blinked at Arden. "You put up a ward?"

  "Yes. I don't want anyone listening in to what I have to say."

  "That's taking paranoia to a whole new level, isn't it?" Tas said.

  "No, it's not." She glanced back at the scene. "Not now. Listen carefully, the only time I ever named who in my coven could possibly go after Ivan was when I was on the phone with Ceridwen. Celene was the one we were grooming to be our Cyber Witch, like Ivan. Either way, the only people who even knew what Celene could do were Ivan, and then me mentioning it last night to Ceridwen."

  "You think Ceridwen has something to do with this?" Crwys narrowed his eyes.

  "No. I don't. The key here is that I used the phone. We were all waiting on Ivan to give us another clue as to what his message meant, but he never did. So I've been giving it some thought and I talked with Jack about a theory."

  "Like what?"

  "We wondered why Ivan didn't give names specifically in that missive, right? His warning was too cryptic. And it's the same kind of warning you said Solomon gave. Neither of them said a name or gave an address. There's no specific information here." She bit her lower lip. "What if Ivan did that on purpose? Cyberspace is made up of information. That's all it is. We use it every day as a gigantic database. The use of that data, directed at his server, is what caught Ivan’s attention. So what if…what if he's found a way to communicate, even though it was encrypted, but didn't use names so whoever is making it hard for him to talk to us can't search it."

  Crwys stared at Arden. "Wow…that was deep."

  She shot him a bird.

  "No, no…I think she's got a point," Tas said. "That's exactly what Cyberspace is. Just information. I'd say half of it was junk, but it's all there. Birthdays, names, social security numbers, addresses, biographies, accounts, everything is there. And if it's not directly inside of it, Cyberspace makes it accessible. They didn't get through to Ivan's computer, or the shop's mainframe, but they did get into Sam's computer."

  Crwys put his hands on his hips. "Are you saying Sam had something to do with Ivan getting mind-napped, if that's what's happened to him? That's kind of a stretch, isn't it? I mean, Sam's pretty much bowed out of things."

  "Exactly." Tas pointed at him. "Sam's been pretty invisible lately. Maybe someone noticed? Maybe someone wanted to find out where Samantha Holliard is? What happened to her? I mean she was the only Arcane wielder in this part of the country. Maybe they were trying to find out something juicy about her background, or even find out about you."

  Arden slowly nodded. "Crwys…"

  "Wait—" Crwys put up a hand. "Are you saying that this her Ivan referred to, as well as Solomon, could be Sam? I really, really think that's stretching things here. We have no proof of any of this."

  Everyone's phone buzzed again. Crwys didn't even bother to pull his phone out. Tas looked at hers and touched the screen.

  "Is it Ivan again?" Crwys asked.

  Tas nodded.

  Then Arden's phone buzzed. She looked at the message and then turned the phone for everyone to see the text from Jack. Apparently, he'd received the same message and decoded it.

  Medical records.

  NINE

  Sam

  I felt awful.

  I'm not sure there's a way to describe this kind of awful. I mean, I get it that awful is awful, but this was…Lady Darksome this was AWFUL! Best way to put it was I had energy, and if I sat up, I'd fall down. Every muscle in my body felt like it was crawling or contracting or something. I couldn't think straight and I just couldn't really hear either. The nurses there got me into a bed and I heard something about a room and observation and insulin levels. I do know they stuck me with needles a hell of a lot more than they said they were going to.

  Robin had gotten me to my appointment and I made sure to take more of the tincture before we left, ‘cause when I woke on the couch, there was protruding belly. Not only was it sticking out again, but it was starting to hurt. My entire front was sore to the touch. I wasn't sure how I would survive if the doc wanted to give me an examination.

  Hell…I'd have braved being poked and prodded before going through this kind of uncomfortable.

  It was somewhere in that haze that I remembered Robin's hand on my cheek. He was saying something and I sort of heard him, and then he got louder and I heard Ivan's name. I blinked a few times and shook my head so I could clear
it. "What about Ivan?"

  "Where is he?" Robin smiled. "You said he'd been checked in here, but I can't find him."

  "Oh, really?" I thought about Ivan and then saw Arden in my head. I think I mumbled something about Arden keeping him safe and knowing someone who could reach him. But then I went to sleep.

  Ah yes…blessed sleep.

  When I woke up it was because of that same pain in my stomach, the one I felt sitting in the hot seat at Parliament. The doctor wanted to give me something for the pain, and I noticed my bulge still wasn't visible. How much of the tincture did I take? It should have worn off by now, right?

  Robin came in and smiled down at me. "You're gonna be fine. They want to keep you here overnight. That's okay."

  "No…what about the big belly thing," I heard myself say. Wow…I sounded like I was twelve. "They'll notice."

  "No, they won't. I put some in your water. No one will see. But I think it's better that you sleep and rest while these nurses take care of you. Okay?"

  I felt another wave of nausea and I felt my face flush. The nurse told Robin to leave, but I called out to him, "Tell Crwys…where I am?"

  "Sure will," Robin said with his beautiful smile.

  I think I dozed, and when I woke again, I was looking up into another familiar face… Only this one was hidden behind a mask, and his eyes were really, really crazy looking

  Crwys

  "Sam's medical records?" Crwys's phone buzzed again, but he ignored it. "What has Sam's medical records got to do with anything? She's healthy. She's human."

  "Crwys," Arden said.

  "Look—" Crwys held up his hand as his phone buzzed again, and he ignored it, again. "I still think all of this is a stretch. I mean, Sam's not involved with the Dragon's Eye, nor is she involved in Solomon's insane actions. That was all my fault. No one would be interested in Sam right now."

  Again, his phone buzzed.

  "Crwys, answer that. If you noticed, ours aren't buzzing. That's probably a legit call."

  It buzzed again as he took it out, and he recognized the number for Tulane Medical Center.

  "Crwys, there's something I need to tell you—" Arden said.

  But he waved her quiet. "Holliard."

  "Is this Crew-yes Holliard?"

  "It's pronounced cruise, like taking a cruise."

  "Ah. I see. This is Doctor Sheila Daniels. Your wife is Samantha Holliard?"

  "Yes. What is this about?" He looked at Arden, who looked a little worried.

  "Well, it's about Samantha. We're not sure she should have left the hospital. After her episode, we wanted to keep her overnight for observation. Gestational diabetes is common with pregnancies, and hers is a particularly dangerous case—"

  Crwys didn't hear anything else after pregnancies. He held up his hand and closed his eyes as he interrupted the doctor, "Wait…back up. Pregnancies?"

  "Yes. She came in yesterday morning with some concerns—oh dear. You sound like you didn't know."

  "Tell me what's happening."

  "Well, during the examination we noticed some symptoms and gave her a preliminary test because her sugar levels were dangerously high. We later discovered some anomalies in her test results that led us to believe there could be problems. So when she came in this morning and we administered the full test, there were complications and she didn't react well to them. She agreed to be admitted, but I just discovered you checked her out. That's why I'm surprised at your reaction."

  "I didn't check her out. I didn't even know she was there." Panic surfaced fast and he felt his chest tighten again, only this time his internal furnace burned to life. He turned away from Tas and Arden's gazes. "So someone claiming to be me checked my wife out of the hospital."

  "Yes…Mr. Holliard, I am so sorry—"

  "Detective Holliard," he said as his anger mounted. "And I plan on investigating you and your hospital for its lax security. How can someone who was not me take my wife? Are you saying you don't know where she is?"

  "Please, Detective. Calm down."

  "Crwys…Apollo," Tas said, and he could hear her own Dragon power in her voice. "You need to calm down, right now."

  "I will not calm down. My wife is…" He looked at Tas. "My wife is pregnant and someone took her from the hospital."

  Tas's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. Arden put her hand to her mouth.

  "Detective, my staff and I will do everything we can to help you locate your wife."

  "You're damn right you will. Do you keep surveillance on the hospital?"

  "I believe we do—"

  "I'll be there in three minutes." He hung up and focused squarely on Arden. "Did you know?"

  "I—"

  "DID YOU KNOW?!"

  Tas put up soft light at that moment, something her own power was able to do, and stilled and muffled things. A few of the officers looked around, but they were all intent on their victim and the scene. "Apollo, you take it down, right now."

  "Artemis," he said as he rounded on her. "Sam's pregnant. You do realize what this means, don't you?"

  "Yes, I do. And we'll find her." She looked at Arden. "When did she find out?"

  "Yesterday, right before the Parliament meeting. Look, I didn't say anything because I didn't want them getting any wind that she was pregnant with a Dragon. They just found out she's not a Witch, and they were wanting to mind wipe her and dissolve your marriage—" She stopped.

  And it was a good thing. Crwys felt the heat of his anger engulf him from the inside. If he let go of just one thread of humanity at that moment, everyone in a hundred-mile vicinity was going to see their first Dragon. Up close and personal.

  "So she found out yesterday…" Tas was saying as she looked at the ground. "Okay, okay so we've got what, forty-eight hours?"

  "Her discovering isn't the moment of conception, Artemis, you know that," Crwys said. "I saw her last night. I saw her on the couch and she looked fine. I didn't even sense anything."

  "Could she have been shielding it?" Tas said. "Some spell…no wait. I'm sorry. I just keep forgetting."

  "There are spells that will shield physical things," Arden said. "But Sam never did mess with potions. Or anything else like that."

  "No, but Kyle does." He pointed at Arden. "He's at the shop. When you're done with Quan, you get over there and find out if he's ever made anything like that, got it? Tas and I are going to head over to the hospital and look at footage."

  "Wait…" Arden put out her hands. "What's wrong? What are you two talking about when you say forty-eight hours? She's pregnant, Crwys. I thought this would be a wonderful thing."

  Tas put her hand on Crwys's arm and answered Arden, "Between Dragons it is. And I know you're thinking of Lethe and her children. She successfully had them, but Lethe wasn't human. She was a Dragon. Sam is human."

  "I'm missing something, aren't I?"

  "Dragons aren't born like humans, Arden. They're hatched from eggs. Large eggs. The initial gestation before the egg is laid is seventy-two hours. For a human, we'd have to get that thing out within forty-eight. Sam's body isn't equipped to handle…an egg."

  Arden's eyes grew wide as she backed up. "That'll tear her apart."

  Crwys didn't say anything else. He took off to his car with Tas beside him. He knew Levi had been listening to the conversation through Ashur and was already on his way to the hospital.

  TEN

  I really, really hate being the victim. You know what I'm talking about. That damsel in distress role. Ever since my mom died, or rather, disappeared from my life because she was a wolf in the world of Alfheim, I'd always taken care of myself. Even after I got her back, I'd still taken care of myself, and her. I'd never relied on my dad for anything. I never even relied on my friends. Much.

  Not when it counted, I think.

  So, after having been imprisoned in a tree for a while, and now imprisoned in a body that didn't feel like it was my own anymore, I was over it. That was the thought going through my head when I finally brok
e through the hazy, mind-numbing miasma of whatever it was that damn doctor had made me drink. If that was sugar, I was swearing off of the stuff because that shit was evil.

  Like…bad evil. Not kinda evil. We're talking mastermind evil.

  It took a few minutes, though, for me to get a better idea of where I was. My last memory was of eyes above a mask. A doctor's mask. The kind you see on those medical TV shows. I'd remembered those eyes too because I'd seen them before. Only they hadn't looked so crazy. And by crazy, I mean wide, all whites, with small irises and pupils.

  Crazy eyes.

  I didn't see them now, though. In fact, opening my eyes, I wasn't sure what I was looking at. It kinda looked like an old painting. With lots of cracks crisscrossing cherubs flying around and people lounging around in white, red and green robes. The cracks I figured were in the canvas, which I slowly realized was a ceiling. I panicked a little, thinking a ceiling with that many cracks couldn't possibly remain over my head and would soon fall in big chunks on top of me.

  Getting up and moving wasn't as easy as I remembered it used to be. I felt heavy. Weighted down by something and as my memories repaired themselves, I remembered…

  I'm pregnant.

  Like…more so than I should be.

  I managed to get myself into a sitting position and looked down at my protruding belly. I was dressed in a hospital gown, which meant if I got up, I'd be exposing my bare ass to the world.

  Now I really looked around the room.

  Where the fuck was I?

  Seriously.

  The room was round. Ish. Circular and the ceiling was domed and covered in the paintings. There were columns around the outer wall, each positioned across from another. I didn't count them, but they looked equally spaced, and between each of the columns were statues. No, hold that thought. There were pieces of statues. Pedestals with bits and pieces, and if I rolled to the side and looked down, I could see the rest of each of them on the floor. The floor looked like dusty marble.