Air: The Elementals Book Two

by L. B. Gilbert

  “Yeah, I know. But chasing our tails in the woods isn’t going to do it either. I think we need to call back the search teams and regroup.”

  “Gonna share that with Dad?” she asked.

  “I was about to. Want to join me?”

  Mara shook her head. “I think I’ll stay out here for a bit.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, concerned at her subdued response. He was used to his sister swearing up a storm. This quiet and distant version of Mara was disconcerting.

  She must really be torn up about Malcolm. If only he’d realized how deep her feelings went before this whole mess started. He could have given Malcolm a push to ask her out back when it would have made a difference…

  Leaving his sister to gather herself, he went inside to update the chief.

  The meeting was tense. Once he got Douglas alone in his soundproofed office, Connell had shared everything he knew about the Elemental weapon and its connection to Logan. His father hadn’t come out and accused her of any wrongdoing, but he’d agreed it was a damning coincidence.

  “I don’t think we should tell Bishop or the others about the weapon’s history until Logan comes back, and we find the damn thing,” Connell said.

  “And how does Logan plan on doing that?” his father asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But she is nearby checking on something, so I think she has a plan.”

  “We’ll see. When do you expect to hear back from her?”

  “Now,” a loud, cheery voice said.

  Both wolves snapped to attention, leaping to their feet, canines bared. A deep growl emanated from both their throats before they realized who had spoken.

  At the window, Logan rolled her eyes.

  “Babe, don’t do that,” Connell barked.

  “How did you get in here?” the chief asked, his neck corded. He relaxed it with some effort.

  Logan’s mouth curled as if the answer was obvious. “You left the window open.”

  She took something out of her bag. It was a small, obsidian arrowhead.

  “What’s that?” Connell asked.

  “Something I like—for focus. I found a ritual I think will help. It’s supposed to help you find something you’ve lost.”

  “But you didn’t lose the staff,” he pointed out.

  “If I’m right, it shouldn’t matter,” Logan said, the outline of her svelte body highlighted by the sunny day. “It’s of my bloodline. Regardless of who has it now, it should want me more.”

  His father frowned. “You make it sound like this staff is somehow alive.”

  Logan took a few steps and perched on the office’s long, oak desk. “I realize your kind doesn’t really go into the magical artifact thing, but it is almost like that. When an object gets strong enough through use and history, it can take on a mind of its own.”

  “What if you’re wrong about it wanting to be with you?” Connell asked. “What if the evil little dragon headpiece has decided to change sides and stay with the bastard pulling this crap?”

  Logan bit her lip. For a second, she looked young and undecided. But it was only a moment before she rolled her shoulders, her usual cocky swagger firmly in place. “I’m betting that after being crafted for an Elemental and spending years at her side, it won’t. It’ll want to be with me.”

  She sounded confident, but there was a tiny hint of doubt in her voice, one he was betting his father had missed. However, Connell was starting to know his sprite’s moods, and he recognized that carefully concealed uncertainty. He saw it in the mirror enough to be familiar with it.

  “All right, well, let’s do this,” his father said, reaching for his phone.

  Suddenly, Logan was at his side, her hand staying his. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I was going to call in the others out searching. Bishop and Malcolm at least should be here.”

  Logan shook her head. “Hold off on that,” she said, belatedly adding a please when his father raised a heavy black brow at her.

  “Any reason why you don’t want them around?” Connell asked.

  Logan was quiet.

  “Babe.”

  She scowled. “Don’t call me that.” Crossing her arms, she exhaled hard. “All right, I haven’t done this particular ritual before. I don’t particularly want to do it now either… And I don’t want an audience.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  Because she thought she would fail? He studied her expression. No, that wasn’t it…

  Logan looked at him, one corner of her mouth turned down. “You’ll see,” she said darkly.

  27

  They were out in the yard in front of the house, a few dozen meters from the tree line. Logan had drawn some elaborate symbols in the dirt, not unlike those pictograms and pictures that had appeared by the porch earlier.

  The symbols formed a rough circle, and his sprite was in the center. When she held out her arms, she looked like she was in the middle of a sundial.

  The day was very bright outside, but there was a cold wind pinkening Logan’s cheeks. It contrasted nicely with the black of her leather jacket.

  “What is she doing now?” Mara asked.

  Despite her request not to have an audience, Logan had gone out of her way to find his sister to give her one of those exaggerated “get your ass over here” gestures before going outside.

  “I’m not sure,” he admitted as the sprite gesticulated in an odd, staccato rhythm.

  The buzz in the wind was starting to get louder the more Logan did…whatever she was doing. Which now appeared to be talking to herself or maybe…chanting?

  He couldn’t hear anything, but the wind started rushing in his ears. This time, he didn’t need to be touching Logan to hear the voices. The damned whispering set his teeth on edge.

  “Do you hear that?” he asked Mara when the ebb and flow of the noise hit a particularly loud crescendo.

  Mara glanced all around them. “Hear what?”

  “Never mind.”

  His father was the only one of them who didn’t look confused or curious. He watched Logan impassively. Maybe he’d seen Gia do something similar back in the day.

  How long would this go on? Connell hated having to sit back and watch while someone else did all the work. Logan had already scolded him once for breaching her circle. He hated waiting around like an idiot, his thumb up his butt—metaphorically, of course.

  Connell closed his eyes, deciding to try to pick out an individual voice from the background buzz. Maybe he could learn something that way.

  His sister nudged him. “What were you going to say—no shit!”

  The surprise in Mara’s voice made his eyes snap open, his head whipping back around to the circle. Logan was holding the obsidian arrowhead, which suddenly looked very pointy and sharp, to her open hand. With a tightening of her facial muscles, she stabbed herself, scoring the sharp tip across her palm.

  A burst of adrenaline carried him to her, but Logan’s eyes flicked up at him, telling him to stop. “Don’t breach the circle,” she ordered.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

  “Whatever I have to do to find the staff,” she said before taking the arrowhead with her bloody hand and cutting the other one wide open.

  “Fuck, Logan, stop,” he shouted at her.

  The blood was pouring from the cuts in a steady stream. Logan looked nauseated, but her voice was steady when she spoke next.

  “It’s done. Calm down, Connell,” she soothed.

  Closing her hands into fists, she moved her bleeding hands over the symbols she had drawn. She passed her fists over them until each symbol had at least one drop of blood on it. When she had finished the last one, the wind roared, the sound growing louder before climaxing with a loud pop.

  Then there was silence. No wind, no leaves rustling. All the background sounds of the nearby forest were gone, the birds quiet.

  Connell scowled at the sudden stillness. “Did you have to cu
t yourself so deep?”

  The flow of the blood wasn’t slowing.

  “Shh,” she scolded.

  Muscles tight, he started to look around for something to wrap around Logan’s hands when the damnedest thing happened.

  Before his disbelieving eyes, the blood stopped falling to the ground. It was like gravity had stopped working. The dark drops hung like jewels suspended in mid-air. And then… they began to climb.

  The droplets rose back up to the height of Logan’s hands, separating into a fine mist. It looked like the cloud was pouring out of the cuts, a vapor of red rising from her palms.

  Freaked out, he pulled off his shirt. He was about to breach the circle to press the cloth to Logan’s wounds when the cuts started to close on their own.

  Mara appeared at his side, her eyes like saucers. “Far-fucking-out!”

  “Not the words I would choose,” he snapped, tugging his shirt back on.

  Inside the circle, Logan heaved a sigh of relief. She turned to smile at him. Relieved, his shoulders dropped. Until she blew him kiss—because that wasn’t what she did. It just looked like it.

  The red mist had been hanging there, denying the laws of physics, but when Logan blew over her palm, it fanned out, floating with purpose now. The cloud moved around him, parting in the middle to pass on either side before continuing past them into the trees.

  Logan hopped out of the circle and ran after the cloud. Right before reaching the tree line, she turned to look at them, exasperated.

  “Well, come on!”

  Next to him, his father laughed. Mara grinned at him. A hoarse laugh rose up from his throat.

  And then, the chase was on.

  The mist poured over hills, shifting and twisting around trees. It didn’t bother with the easiest path, moving haphazardly one minute and with obvious intent the next. It would have been difficult for a human to keep up, but Logan and the others didn’t have a problem.

  Connell ran fast, even as a human. He kept pace with her while the two wolves ran behind. Mara and the chief had shifted to their four-legged forms. They could have easily overtaken them, but there was no point.

  The cloud wasn’t trying to outrun them. It was searching, taking one route, and then another, occasionally backtracking or circling over a spot aimlessly before resuming its course again.

  They pounded after the blood cloud for a solid twenty minutes. It was high above them near the middle of the tree line when it topped a rise and abruptly stopped. Logan frowned and hurried up the hill. The blood cloud hadn’t stopped to circle over the weapon as it was designed to. Instead, it had flattened out, pressing against a barrier she couldn’t see.

  “What the hell is that?” Mara asked.

  Logan turned to her and blinked rapidly. Connell’s sister was standing right behind her, stark naked. So was the chief. Cheeks on fire, she pointedly looked back up at the trapped cloud.

  Next to her, Connell snickered. “Wolves can’t magic their clothes back on,” he informed her before whipping off his shirt and handing it to Mara.

  His sister, really? Couldn’t he give his father something to wear?

  Rolling her eyes to plead with the Mother for patience, she turned back to the obstruction, ignoring the nudity of the Weres behind her.

  Connell walked up to the top of the ridge and reached out. His hand stopped short as it came into contact with the barrier, and Logan snatched it back.

  “Don’t do that. It could be booby-trapped.”

  He shrugged off her concern. “It’s almost solid,” he said, looking down at his fingers. “And kind of gooey.”

  Glowering at him, Logan took his hands and blasted them with a harsh rush of air. The smallest traces of magical residue blew off and dissipated into the aether.

  “Let me handle this,” she scolded.

  Reaching out she extended her hands, but she didn’t touch the barrier. It wasn’t visible to her naked eye, but when she directed air at the unseen force, the air spread over the surface, giving her an idea of the size and circumference of the invisible wall.

  The obstruction was dome-shaped, but irregular on the side closest to them. It was almost like a huge, misshapen bowl had been dropped in the middle of the woods. And Connell was right. The barrier had some give to it. The force of the wind warped its surface, like when a child blew on a soap bubble without breaking it.

  Air, however, could work its way through some of the most solid of barriers. Narrowing her eyes, she applied a little more force, directing the wind like a saw blade at the space just in front of them.

  The blast blew back her hair in streamers behind her, but that was nothing compared to the noise. The sound of the wind increased in pitch until it was a whistling shriek that vibrated her eardrums.

  “Fuck, Logan,” Connell swore, slapping his hands over his ears.

  Logan wrinkled her nose and checked behind her—focusing on Mara. She was doing the same thing.

  “Sorry,” she muttered. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  Redoubling her efforts, she forced a gap in the barrier. Air rushed in, widening the rift like surf pouring through the hull of a boat. Using a booted foot, Logan kicked the edges wider until the whole dome cracked and burned up, the energy contained in the shell spontaneously combusting when it gave.

  “What’s that smell?” Douglas asked from behind her.

  “Burning force-field,” she said, checking the reflexive impulse to look at him when he spoke.

  Connell noticed her averted gaze and was still smirking at her when she stepped over the ridge. She made her way around some trees halfway down the slope, trailed by the Weres.

  The smug expression on Connell’s face wiped clean when he looked over her head.

  At first, Logan didn’t notice the body. She had been so focused on finding the staff of Feng Po Po that she almost missed the fact it had been driven clean through a man.

  “Shit,” she swore, hurrying down to the body.

  It was a Were. That much she could tell from his size and build. He was lying in the middle of a small, cleared space at the bottom of the ridge, the wind ruffling his golden-blond hair. His eyes seemed to be staring sightlessly at the dragon winking down at him from the top of the staff—the one embedded in his chest.

  Connell and his family fanned around her and the body.

  “Anyone you know?” she asked, frowning down at the victim. He’d been quite handsome in life. And he looked familiar.

  There was a pointed silence. Logan quickly realized something was wrong and glanced up at the wolves in question. Their faces were grave, shock and dismay in every line. But there was something more in Mara’s eyes that made her turn away quickly.

  Connell cleared his throat. “It’s Malcolm, my father’s third.”

  28

  Gia hauled another book off the shelf and sneezed at the dust that followed it. Ever since Logan confirmed that the weapon involved in the Maitland case was indeed Feng Po Po’s staff, she had been pulling all the records she could find on that famed Elemental.

  “Noomi,” she called out. “Did you find that index?”

  The head historian had returned to the archive complex a short while ago. The rest of her staff had as well, but they were staying out of Gia’s way, letting Noomi be the one to interact with her.

  Gia liked to think she was friendly and approachable, but the head archivist appeared to be the only one comfortable looking her in the eye. Trying to be respectful of the staff’s sensibilities, Gia let the others go about their business, but occasionally, Noomi drafted one of them to pull the records she needed as they tracked them down.

  Noomi popped her head around the corner. “One moment, Daughter of Earth.”

  Gia smiled and put the heavy volume on the table. Even when harassed, the head archivist was unfailingly polite.

  She opened the book and started turning the pages. There had been several mentions of the staff in their records, but so far, she had found little that
would help Logan. It had taken her half an hour to find this particular volume. It was supposed to include a story from Feng Po Po’s last years as an Elemental in Asia.

  Gia had wanted to find this book because it was supposed to be the Air Elemental’s famous stripping of the Korean Crown Prince Sado. The story was a legendary tragedy. The witch in question had been the favored son of the prominent family until he’d gone mad. His magic had made him dangerous and unpredictable. Fearing for the safety of the other members of her family, the matriarch had turned to their kind for help. Feng Po Po had stripped the witch, but not before he had killed hundreds of servants in his household.

  Gia was hoping the account would confirm her suspicions. She and the others now had the ability to take away magical ability using only their talent, but that hadn’t always been the case. Long ago, that had been done with long, arduous rituals—and tools designed for the task.

  All such devices had been destroyed long ago—or at least, they should have been. Now that they could perform a stripping without any kind of tool, those objects presented a danger to the Supernatural community. It would have been difficult for anyone other than an Elemental to wield one, let alone use it correctly. But, if she was being honest, a skilled witch could have figured out how to use one given enough time.

  A few minutes later, Gia found the story she was looking for, but again, there was no helpful information that confirmed the staff was the instrument used in the stripping.

  Sighing, she rocked back in the chair. There were a number of possibilities to consider. If it was indeed the staff they were looking for—and Logan’s hunch was good enough for her—then it shouldn’t have been around anymore. It would have been destroyed in the purge of the other objects like it—if its dual nature had been recognized. But she, like many others, assumed it had been a weapon and nothing more.

  What if the archivists and other Elementals at the time hadn’t realized the staff performed double duty back in the day? The purge of those tools would have occurred long after Feng Po Po’s death. In the meantime, the staff would have been passed on to other Elementals in her line or her family if none were chosen.