The Elementals Collection

by L. B. Gilbert

  He tossed the shovel aside and yanked on the lid, revealing a perfectly preserved body. “I thought it was going to be empty.”

  The man lying in state was wearing an intricately embroidered robe. He was perfect—his face, his hair, the hands neatly folded on his chest. He reminded Daniel of a Hollywood bit player, the talentless hacks so pretty they could skate by on looks alone.

  “Why doesn’t he seem dead?” Even if he’d been embalmed, there should have been a noticeable amount of decay by now.

  This man, who resembled a male model with his thick dark hair and chiseled features, appeared as if he’d just laid down for a nap. Even his cheeks, which were much lighter in color than Daniel’s own dusky skin, had a natural pink flush.

  He turned to Serin, uncertain what to do next. She stared down at the body.

  “It can’t have been empty,” she explained, her eyes fixed to the man’s face. “My parents were here when John brought the body from Jordan’s family home. The elders said prayers over his corpse in the temple.”

  “Is that why he looks so…alive?”

  “No. Our prayers are for a speedy journey to the afterlife. Since we don’t traditionally bury bodies, we left the remaining burial rituals to John, his uncle and only family member.”

  Daniel absorbed that for a moment, a little chill trickling down his spine as he remembered his least favorite stories from church.

  “When I was little, the priests taught us about the saints—there is a whole list of them whose bodies supposedly didn’t decay. He called them the Incorruptibles,” he said, unable to tear his eyes away from the unnaturally pristine corpse.

  Serin huffed out what almost sounded like a laugh. “Jordan isn’t a saint by any definition.”

  O-kay. “Where is his home?”

  “I believe it’s in upstate New York.”

  Daniel glanced up. “You believe?”

  “I never visited. He wanted to show it to me just after we bonded, but I had a very big case fall into my lap. After I was done, I asked to go, but he had changed his mind. He decided he would rather join me on my next case. That’s when he began to travel with me.”

  Daniel murmured something unintelligible, wondering if he should apologize for digging up her ex-husband. What the hell was the protocol here?

  Serin gracefully slid down next to him. She balanced her feet on the edge of the coffin, kneeling close to the face.

  “Um, Serin…” He blinked, grabbing his shirtfront.

  Now that she was next to him, he could feel her emotions like a wave of cold. It wasn’t his imagination. She was literally cold, the air around her crystalizing like a winter’s night.

  I should never have started this. He was an asshole. Yes, digging her ex up had been her idea, but Daniel should have stopped her. He would have if he’d known this was going to happen. Daniel put his hand on her shoulder, intending to nudge her.

  It was a mistake. The biting cold swept up his arm. Flinching, he snatched his hand back, ready to argue with her. They had to close the box. Sure the corpse looked weird, but it might be because the guy’s uncle had cast some weird preservation spell.

  Suddenly, Serin leaned forward and put both her hands on the corpse’s face. A hazy ripple of fog passed over it. When she let go, the fog dissolved, revealing a face that was completely different from the one they’d first uncovered.

  Daniel staggered, nearly falling over on the body. “Fucking hell. It’s not him.”

  Serin glanced at him over her shoulder. Her eyes could have frozen hell. “No, it’s not.”

  “Uh…do you recognize this guy?”

  She shook her head, raising her fingers and rubbing them together. “It’s a spell, one of the most sophisticated I’ve ever seen—something that combines stasis and a glamour.”

  “A glamour like Loki does?” Daniel asked. He peered around, half-expecting to see the fae trickster coming down the hill.

  “Fae glamours are unique to their species. They fade when the body dies. And this person is definitely dead. The question is, did Jordan kill him and leave the body for John to find or did John deceive us, too?”

  Having a mystery to solve made Daniel feel better. “I don’t know, but we can figure it out. Let’s start by finding out who this guy is.”

  Daniel held up the phone, then snapped a few flash pictures of the man’s face, but after the first one, a strange shadow crept over it. Sensing something off, he slowly lifted his eyes to see what was obscuring the moonlight when Serin grabbed his arm.

  “Get up!”

  Together, they scrambled out of the grave as tendrils of black broke through the body like a hundred tentacles reaching out for them.

  28

  The counter-spell wasn’t working. Serin grabbed one of the tendrils trying to climb her leg like a snake. Her skin sizzled as if it were coated in acid. Reflexively, she let go, but the damn thing dragged her back into the grave, wrapping around her so tightly it cut off her circulation.

  With a wrench, she peeled it off, starting another spell at the same time. It had no effect. Instead, more tentacles wrapped around her legs and waist, holding her fast in the hole.

  Serin let go, shifting to her water form to jump out of the hellish pit. She reformed at the edge, shouting, “Get Diana! She’s with Alec in the archive.”

  She pushed Daniel as the tendrils lashed out of the hole, trying to grab him as well. Despite the burn, she grasped the wiggling tentacles. Daniel hesitated, leaning down as if to grab it.

  “No! You can’t touch it. It’ll kill you. Go now.”

  With one last tortured glance back, he turned and ran in the direction of the archives.

  Serin shifted again, fighting the tendrils back into the grave while muttering counter-spell after counter-spell. Nothing worked. The best she could do was contain them and hope the island’s inherent magic would help.

  Smoke began to rise from the grave as the writhing mass grew exponentially, burning through the wooden box with a roar. It sounded like an animal or the monster of a science fiction horror movie that had escaped the confines of the screen. Whenever it touched the soil, its acid burned, eating the life inside.

  The curse was laying waste to the earth itself, killing millions of microorganisms and nutrients with every squirm and smack.

  Serin turned her eyes inward, looking past the writhing mass underneath it. She gasped, fear and dread overriding her control. Sweat broke out over her skin as she traced the path of the tendrils down—its path marked by the death of the bacterial and fungal flora that made the soil of the island so plentiful and rich.

  The mass was burrowing deeper, the toxic feelers growing as they lashed out. They had buried Jordan at the heart of the island. From here, it could radiate out, spreading to every end of the sacred landmass.

  Breaking the glamour spell had triggered it. Jordan hadn’t killed himself. It had been a trap the whole time.

  “Serin!” Diana was running down the hill with Alec at her heels. Daniel was some distance behind them, followed by other islanders she couldn’t identify.

  Serin reformed, snatching up the shovel and swinging it at a flapping tentacle. “The body was cursed. We have to burn it.”

  She lifted her hand, muttering the spell that would allow her to borrow some of her sister’s ability.

  As a senior Elemental, Serin could borrow the other Elementals’ talents to varying degrees. Fire and Air were relatively easy. To some degree, she could shift the Earth as well, although her control over the latter wasn’t as precise.

  The ability to wield Fire was only strengthened in Diana’s presence. Serin ignited her right hand.

  The oily, acidic tendril reared back as if it could sense the flames. She threw it down, hitting the tentacle. The pop and sizzle were faint. The smell of burning oil and tar confirmed she hit it, but there was no measurable damage.

  A much-larger blast of fire joined hers. Diana was there, directing her flames at the monstrous ten
tacles.

  The smoke was different now. It stung Serin’s eyes. She called a little of Logan’s power, drawing on her sister’s mastery of the winds to blow the poisonous fumes out to sea.

  The blackened mass in the pit was smaller now, but its size was deceptive.

  “No, damn it. The curse is burrowing deeper,” she called to Diana.

  She could feel the moisture wicking away as the soil under her feet died.

  The spell had a life of its own. It behaved like a primitive animal, shying away from the dangerous fire and racing under the surface like fungal hypha on steroids.

  Diana cast her magic deeper, trying to burn it from under the ground, but this was T’Kaieri. She couldn’t make her fire talent work under the soil surface. There wasn’t enough oxygen there to feed the flames.

  Her sister broke off, her face white as a sheet. “I can’t follow it.”

  “I know,” Serin breathed in a low voice.

  “Can you redirect the lava from under the volcano?”

  Serin spun around to see Alec helping Daniel to his feet. Their efforts were destabilizing the ground around them.

  “I don’t think so, not without breaking up the island.”

  She and Diana stared at each other. Images of Pompeii as it fell flitted behind Serin’s eyes. This is not the myth of Atlantis brought to life. That was not how it was going to end.

  Serin shook her head violently. “This is on me. I’ll use my power to collect it, drag it out into the open.” She hesitated.

  Diana grabbed her hand. “What is it?”

  Serin took a shaky break. “It’s going so fast. The longest tendrils are only a few miles from the beach. I don’t know what will happen if they reach the island’s borders.”

  Something told her the spell wouldn’t end there. Ice formed in her gut as her mind rapidly calculated possibilities.

  “I need the ocean.” She turned to the men and the rapidly gathering crowd. “I have to flood this part of the island. Go find the infirm and your young. Taken them to the high ground at the bluffs. I will do my best to keep the water away from your homes, but I may not be able to. Go now!”

  Alec pulled at Daniel, dragging him away. Behind them, the crowd dispersed with shouts.

  Her ears were filled with snatches of prayers. The islanders were begging the Mother for mercy. But help wouldn’t come from their goddess. That was why Serin was here.

  She extended her arms out in supplication, pictured the beach, and called the rolling waves.

  All was silent save for a faint crashing sound. Moments later, the water burst into view on her right, running down into the valley, a furious flash food. The mass and volume forced its way, carving a deep path for itself. But this was more like a raw wound. T’Kaieri would bear the scar for centuries or more. If it survived.

  Diana became distinctly more nervous as the water rushed down around them. To the untrained eye, it was an undisciplined and uncontrolled flood. Serin relaxed as it splashed down, leaving her in a circle of dry land.

  Her head was already pounding. This was nothing like diverting a river or manipulating a pool of water. Even calling down a storm was easier than this. “I’m going to dig it out. Be ready to call your hottest fire.”

  She let go, joining the torrent of water lapping at her feet. For a moment, it was glorious. She could feel the ocean’s joy as they joined as one. It bubbled and frothed in celebration, the way it always did when she let it consume her.

  This was the feeling Marina felt when she let go to become one with the sea. The echoes of Serin’s long-departed sisters could be heard in the roar.

  Warmth touched her as the water splashed around Diana’s feet. It sizzled, which told her that her sister was heating up, getting ready.

  Serin stopped hesitating. She let the ocean water flood into the open grave, following it down like a speeding train.

  Her body seeped into the soil, letting her follow the path of death and destruction. Her heart ached at the damage done to life of the island.

  The beast of a spell reacted to her presence. It shed something like a skin, releasing a foul sludge as if it were melting, polluting the water. She could feel its noxious will, a primitive intelligence, trying to wrestle control. It wanted to take over the water—to use it to spread the poison farther and faster.

  But she was here, in the flow. Serin threw herself at it, sending her water out in jets, chasing the tendrils throughout the soil. She surrounded the tentacles one by one, but her magic couldn’t force them back.

  Drowning them wouldn’t work. She had to force them back another way. A movie image flitted through her mind—of Ursula the Sea Witch getting impaled by a ship’s mast. She’d watched the movie once at Logan’s insistence. Both had marveled at how poorly Disney had captured the ocean and its inhabitants. But it gave her an idea.

  The whirlpool.

  Serin stretched out with her mind, focusing on the end of each tendril. She swirled the water, directing the flow in a circle over and over again until she’d formed thousands and thousands of vortexes, all spinning madly.

  The tendrils were caught in the multiple maelstroms, their poison concentrated in the center. Desperate now, she threw out lash after lash of water, sending it after every toxic thread.

  Controlling this much water at this level taxed her control. Serin’s mind was stretching thin, her very essence at threat. She wasn’t meant to act at on a region this large. With each rivulet of water she was forced to cast out, the concentration of will and magic that held her together weakened.

  This was how her aunt had gone. Marina had done it willingly. Serin was being torn apart by the spell’s speed.

  All around her, the island was dying. She could feel the evil burning through the ground and then a void, a little vacuum where life should have existed.

  The soil was this island’s lifeblood. It was the T’Kaierian’s connection to the Mother, and it was being severed.

  Serin. The voice called her, its distinctive timbre alien to her in this form. It wasn’t the Mother. It was Daniel. He was yelling at her, tone demanding. Serin, come back.

  Oh. Of course. He could feel her unraveling. She refocused on his voice, the sound like a light at the end of the tunnel. Another joined it. Diana was yelling at her now, too.

  Her mother’s voice joined the chorus. Then her father’s. Cousins, friends, and neighbors came together. Their voices rose as one, cresting until it was all Serin could hear, a wall of sound and song that encouraged and fortified.

  The little cracks in her will stopped widening as the prayers wrapped around her. Bolstered, she redoubled her efforts, drawing the whirlpools in, churning out a hole of mud and water. It felt like hours but must have been minutes until she was able to drag the writhing mass out, forcibly yanking it out of the ground with the last of her strength.

  Somehow, she managed to find her body within her dying energy. She reformed her hands, driving the mass of water into a sphere. The bottom rested on the surface of the ground right next to the grave.

  Serin and Diana were surrounded by a large group of islanders. Some of the elders, her parents, and many others. Their youngest and infirm were out of sight, but the able-bodied of their population had disobeyed her. Everyone with talent was there. Their hands were raised as if joined in prayer, but they weren’t chanting to the Mother. They were casting a spell of fortitude.

  It was aimed at her…and it was their wills holding her together.

  Diana put her hands on Serin’s shoulder, silently imparting some of her strength. Serin coughed, remembering to breathe again. “You have to burn it!”

  A bewildered expression crossed her sister’s face. “How? I can’t burn water.”

  “In the center,” Serin ground out, her head threatening to split open despite the islanders’ efforts to help. “I have to separate the molecules. Water won’t burn, but hydrogen will.”

  “What?” Diana’s mouth dropped open. “Can you do that?”


  No. “I can try.”

  Diana’s milky-white skin turned even paler. “But…but won’t that be like an H-bomb?”

  “No, that’s fusion,” Serin corrected. “Think more like the Hindenberg. But you have to be very careful. You must control the blast from beginning to end or you’ll destroy the island.”

  “Fuck,” Diana swore before stepping to the right. Alec flashed to her side. He took hold of her waist, leaving his mate’s hands free so she could work.

  Daniel came up on Serin’s left. He pressed against her side, his arm wrapping across her back as if he could physically hold her together.

  Serin didn’t speak to him. She had to conserve every particle of energy, but his presence was welcomed. The edges of her hands started to glow as she began to separate the individual molecules to create a cushion of flammable hydrogen around the curse mass.

  There was no spell for this. Serin was flying by the seat of her pants, calling on the last of her resources for the taxing precision work.

  A blast of air swept over them, roaring in her ears, but she paid it no mind, shutting out everything but the bubble of death and destruction in front of her. Slowly, the cushion of air and hydrogen thickened.

  “Now, Diana,” Serin ordered. It was all on the Fire Elemental now.

  Serin wanted to help, but she didn’t have the strength. It was taking everything she had to hold the huge sphere of water together.

  Diana swore under her breath. “Alec, get out of here.”

  “Take Daniel with you,” Serin ordered. “Get the crowd back.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Alec said.

  His words mixed with Daniel’s fervent, “Hell no.”

  “Romero, get my parents farther away or I will never speak to you again,” she yelled, her eyes burning.

  Daniel swore, but he turned on his heel and started running toward the crowd. Serin felt him go, but the warm pressure of his hands remained.

  “Diana, get moving,” Serin urged.

  Her sister’s hands went up. At first, nothing happened. There was only a shifting of the molecules. Diana was touching the cushion, shifting the molecules around but not igniting them. Her fear was palpable. Serin didn’t blame her for her hesitation, but she was on the verge of collapse.