The Elementals Collection

by L. B. Gilbert

  The swish of robes made him turn around. “Oh, good,” he said as Ksenia, one of the junior archivists, approached with a parchment in hand.

  “Is that the updated inventory list for the amethyst room?” he asked

  Each of the vast cavern-like chambers of the archive was organized along a distinctive color spectrum, a rainbow of gemstones. When one room in the warren was filled, another magically appeared, its walls pre-embedded with the gemstone that would give it its name.

  Checking the contents of each room would have been an impossible task without the existing archival records. Nevertheless, checking those lists against the actual inventory was a daunting task for any group, so he’d broken the junior archivists and some of the retirees up into teams. They’d been working day and night in shifts while he supervised and spot-checked their work. Not that he was slacking off and making them do all the work. He was busy making sure the more dangerous artifacts weren’t replaced with fakes or forgeries.

  “I’m afraid it is still in progress,” she said, fingering the parchment nervously. “This is about Noomi.”

  Alec perked up. “Is she back?”

  Work had slowed considerably since the senior archivist had left. When he learned she’d taken it upon herself to escort the Loki back to the mainland, he realized she was going to be away for a while. Things had a habit of getting off course around a Loki. But this Loki was Serin’s friend, so he wasn’t worried about Noomi. Not yet, anyway…

  “No, she hasn’t returned, but the elders wanted an update on our progress.” Ksenia cleared her throat gently. “They decreed that no sensitive volumes could be checked out by the island’s inhabitants, so they sent some of us out to collect them from people’s homes.”

  “Damn and blast. No wonder everything has been taking so bloody long.” The junior archivists were running all over the island, collecting overdue books. “What does this have to do with Noomi?”

  Ksenia gripped the paper in her hand tighter. “Well…the volumes Noomi checked out just before her departure are all of a very sensitive nature.”

  With a frown, Alec plucked the parchment from her hand and scanned the list. “Waddell’s Advanced Spellcraft, Coriander’s Practical Magic, the Shadow Codex…”

  The list went on and on. Damn, he hadn’t realized the archive had a copy of the Branium Vivitae.

  Though it mainly contained defensive spells, a talented practitioner could do a lot of damage with that text.

  “Hmm, I can see how they would have a problem with these going missing,” he observed.

  Ksenia’s eyes flared in alarm. “They’re not missing. Noomi is only borrowing them. She will return them when she gets back.”

  “Of course she will,” he said bracingly.

  That didn’t seem to calm her. Ksenia stared at him as if waiting for him to do something else.

  “Tell you what,” he said, rolling up the parchment. “Why don’t you and I keep this list to ourselves for now?”

  Her breath escaped in a whoosh. “Oh…I don’t think that’s wise. The elders told me to report anything of note to them right away.”

  Alec could hear the incipient panic in the young woman’s voice at the thought of keeping anything from the elders. He stifled a sigh. Those tightwads were mere figureheads. It was clear the power of T’Kaieri rested with the family lines the Elemental Water talent bounced between. However, the elders had a habit of running roughshod over the young people, the junior archivists in particular.

  “Then you should,” he assured her. “Right after you finish the inventory of the amethyst room. Maybe after the tourmaline room is done, too.”

  Awareness dawned, and she coughed. “Yes, I see. The inventory has to take priority.”

  “I’m glad you agree. Noomi will surely return before we’re done. Then this small concern will be a moot point.”

  Ksenia nodded, her breathing deepening. “Yes…I should get back to it,” she said before bowing deeply and hurrying away.

  Alec watched her go before turning back to the list with a whistle. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Noomi.”

  32

  “Are you ready?” Loki asked as he crouched.

  “No!” Noomi flattened herself against the massive wooden crate, doing her best to stay below the line of sight of the men gathered across the warehouse. “How did I ever let you talk me into this?” she whisper-wailed.

  Loki peeked around the corner at the cluster of armed men. “I believe it involved lots and lots of wine.”

  He took the spell vials she’d prepared out of her hands. “Don’t worry. This is going to work. We just have to wait for the guy in the suit to step out. He’s clearly the boss. Once he’s out of sight, I’m going to glamour myself into him so we can get the drop on the remaining guards. Once they’re out, we can corner the boss and make him tell us where the amulet is.”

  The amulet was how they’d found Armand, the head arms dealer. Noomi had taken a page out of Serin’s book. There has been an amulet on the list of missing items. Alec hadn’t known the innocuous silver pendant had an overlocking bronze oval. The two pieces were never stored together because when they had been in the past, they had an unfortunate tendency to attract hordes of squirrels.

  It hadn’t occurred to her that the bronze overlay could be used to scry for the other piece until Loki mentioned it was what Serin had done for the Sai.

  “He’s going,” Loki hissed. Noomi took a deep breath before risking a peek around the corner of the crate.

  The long-haired man in aviator glasses was walking away. He was flanked by a dangerous-looking brute as they headed down a side hallway.

  “He’s taking his bodyguard with him,” she whispered. Their plan to isolate the boss was compromised.

  “We can still do this,” Loki insisted. “I’m just going to need you to hit the big guard on the back of the head with one of these knockout spells after I take out these three.”

  Reaching into the bag strapped to her side, he removed two spell vials. He pressed one into each of her hands. “You have to make sure you hit them hard enough to break the glass,” he warned.

  She gulped aloud, but took the vials. “This is a stupid idea. We should send for Serin or at least text Daniel.”

  “No,” Loki whined. “They have their hands full tracking Puck. The least we can do is mop us this little mess for them.”

  She studied the remaining three men. They were all big males, the kind with naturally grim faces that made people cross the street to avoid them.

  “You call this bunch a little mess?”

  “Sure…” He waved dismissively. “We’ve got that crackerjack protection spell you found. Even if my glamour doesn’t trick them, they won’t be able to shoot us.”

  “The spell is not going to make us bulletproof.” Noomi didn’t have the talent to create those spells. They were too difficult to sustain for any useful amount of time. “The potion I brewed is just going to confuse the men.”

  She’d spent the better part of a week getting the spell ingredients together and mixed properly, in between trying to talk Loki out of this reckless course of action.

  The bitter brew tweaked an observers’ perception. It made anyone who saw them register their bodies two feet to their right or left instead of their actual location. With luck, if any of the men managed to shoot, their aim would be off, or at least that was the idea… They hadn’t had time to fully test it.

  There were so many things that could go wrong. But Loki was determined to do this, and she couldn’t let him go it alone.

  That doesn’t mean you can’t try to make him see reason one last time. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait for Serin to get here?” Noomi had the messaging incantation memorized.

  Loki wasn’t even listening to her. The ripple of bending light passed over him, sending the wave of glamour over his body. “One…two…”

  He was gone before three. Disguised as Armand, he strutted down the middle o
f the warehouse through the narrow lane made by the boxes stacked in neat rows on either side. Waving at the men impatiently, he cleared his throat.

  “Get over here,” he ordered in a surprisingly decent imitation of the arms dealer’s voice.

  One of the men frowned, but the other two shrugged and began to approach him obediently.

  Noomi’s held her breath as they came closer to her hiding spot. Clutching the two spell vials, she waited, sweat trickling down her back.

  Her heart began to race as the men closed the distance. You don’t have to do anything. This part of Loki’s plan was bound to work. The trio got closer and closer. Loki waited until they were almost six feet away.

  The fae man pulled his arm back, launching two of the spell vials as hard as he could. One vial broke as intended, and the man went down, falling to the floor unconscious.

  The second vial hit the shorter guard in the middle. His belly fat acted as a cushion. The glass bounced off, landing on the floor and cracking open.

  “Shite…” Loki reached down, trying to scoop up the liquid with his hand.

  “Boss, what are you doing?” the slowest of the three asked as his partner scowled at the fallen man, still not putting two and two together.

  “Hold this,” Loki-slash-Armand said, slapping the liquid onto the retreating man’s cheek. He dropped like a stone.

  There was only one man left standing. Noomi squeaked aloud, her terror escaping at a higher pitch than her normal voice. She hurried around the safety of her corner, stumbling a bit as the goon stood gaping at the man he believed to be his boss.

  Loki reached into his pocket for another vial. That was when the mouth-breathing bruiser finally came up with four. He slapped at Loki, his meaty paw knocking him to the ground.

  Whimpering, Noomi ran forward, throwing one of the vials in her hand out in a wild arc. Her aim was terrible. Instead of striking the man in the chest, it hit him in the ankle and wedged there, unbroken.

  She and Loki locked eyes, trading panic back and forth like an invisible hot potato.

  Loki crouched as if he were going to leap on the man. Gulping, Noomi rushed forward, slamming her foot down on the vial. It broke open on the goon’s thick leather boot just next to the lacings.

  “Ow! You bitch.” He flung his arm out, knocking her against the crates with a backhanded slap.

  “Don’t you fucking touch her,” Loki yelled, launching himself at the guy. Both fell to the floor, the guard twisting so Loki ended up on the bottom, Armand’s wiry compact form completely engulfed by the other guy’s massive bulk.

  Noomi darted forward again, prepared to break a second vial over the man’s head, but she soon realized he wasn’t moving.

  “Oh, he’s out.” She had knocked him out after all. “The potion must have soaked through his shoe.”

  “Great,” Loki grunted, straining. “Can you get him off me?”

  “Sorry!” She reached down and tugged a thick arm, but it was like trying to lift a tree trunk.

  Loki heaved, trying to squirm out from under the weight. “You would have picked the tallest one.”

  Noomi tsked, changing tactics. Instead of pulling, she started pushing until the top half of the man rolled off Loki’s chest.

  Taking a deep breath, he held up a finger. “When we tell Serin and Daniel what we did, we’re going to leave this part out.”

  She laughed a touch hysterically as Loki popped up, getting to his feet as if nothing had happened. “Let’s hide them.”

  “How?” The original plan was to hide them out of sight, but they’d severely underestimated how heavy their adversaries would be.

  Loki glanced around. “What if we assemble a crate over them instead?”

  She hesitated. “Don’t you think the real Armand would find it strange, a big box like this appearing suddenly in the middle of the walkway?”

  Loki shrugged. “Good help is hard to find.”

  Her lips compressed.

  “All right.” He spun around. “Maybe there’s a trolley or a cart around here.”

  In the end, the only thing they could find was a tarp. Loki pushed the bodies close together and Noomi threw it over them, wiping the oily residue from the canvas on her pants.

  She turned around to meet two pairs of eyes. Armand—the real one—and his guard were watching them.

  They’d been caught.

  She smacked Loki on the arm, and he straightened up. His lips parted. For a second, he froze, but he didn’t launch into his prepared spiel. He tugged on her arm, pulling her after him as he ran away.

  Armand shouted something she didn’t catch. Noomi made the mistake of glancing back as the hulking bodyguard put his head down to charge like a bull.

  “Run!” They darted into the side lanes created by the crates, but their feet pounded on the concrete, the racket giving away their location.

  Wood broke as their pursuer batted some of those massive crates aside, chasing them down like vermin.

  “Why didn’t you throw a spell vial or try another glamour?” she panted as they careened around another blind corner.

  “Armand is not a goblin. He’s some kind of high fae. I can feel it. He can see through any glamour.”

  “What?” How could a highborn fae be here? Most of the upper caste was so severely allergic to iron they couldn’t even be in the same room as a gun, and this room was full of them.

  If a high fae could tolerate being here, then he was warded-up beyond reason.

  Wood splintered by their heads, and hands reached through a broken crate. Noomi screamed as the hand grabbed Loki, jerking him off his feet. He flew back as he was hauled bodily through the air.

  She tried to follow, but the spill of guns and packing material blocked her way.

  Crying, Noomi climbed over the weapons, praying they weren’t loaded. Half-jumping, half-running, she managed to clear the spilled pile.

  The man had Loki pinned against another crate. The monster was choking the life from him.

  A broken cry escaped her throat. Noomi jumped on the man’s back, trying to surprise him into letting go, but it was like tackling a brick wall. He didn’t react at all, not even to bat her away.

  Baffled, she hung on before gritting her teeth and climbing him like a tree.

  Loki whimpered, his face going from white to beet red. His hands scrabbled at the bull’s, trying to pry the beefy fingers away from his neck.

  The vials.

  Noomi clung to the beast with one hand, dumping out the contents of the little bottles directly over his mouth.

  Nothing happened. She knew some of the liquid had entered the man’s mouth, but he kept going, refusing to drop her friend.

  How was that possible? The sleeping spell was strong enough to take down a war elephant.

  Tears stung at her eyes as helplessness swamped her. Desperate, she fished out her small knife and plunged it into the back of the man’s neck.

  The short blade pierced the flesh, sinking in several inches…but the monster didn’t react.

  Loki was losing consciousness, his lashes fluttering as his eyes closed, maybe for the last time.

  “Allow me,” a woman’s voice said.

  Noomi jerked her head away as a spike with a wickedly sharp tip emerged from the monster’s forehead. Gasping, she let go, falling to the floor with a crash right next to a raggedly breathing Loki.

  “Serin?”

  Noomi wanted to weep in relief. The Water Elemental had ridden to the rescue, her human mate at her side.

  Serin had made good use of the Sai she’d recovered recently. It was running straight through the back of the man’s head, the sharp point poking through his forehead. It was without a doubt the world’s most terrible unicorn.

  A corner of Serin’s mouth pulled up, but it wasn’t a smile. “Didn’t you notice the mark on his forehead?” she asked Noomi.

  “What mark?” She scrambled to her feet.

  Daniel nodded at her, kneeling to check
on Loki.

  “How did you find us?” Loki asked, rubbing his neck. His voice was hoarse, but he still managed to sound disappointed.

  “Alec had Diana send word out through the aether. He told us about the books Noomi had borrowed from the archive and what he suspected you were up to. Tracking you became a priority.”

  Serin hopped up, bracing herself against the man’s buttocks. She pried her blade out of the corpse’s head before jumping back down. The giant fell backward like a sequoia felled by a storm.

  “If you’re going to insist on going out in the field, you have to pay closer attention to the details,” the Water Elemental scolded, pointing at the hulk’s forehead.

  There was a subtle tracing, a word that had been interrupted by the wound.

  “It’s a g-golem!” Noomi stammered.

  The word Serin had punctured was in ancient Mesopotamian. When carved into a clay automaton, it could animate them—provided the complicated ritual was done correctly. Other variations of the spell included writing the holy words on a parchment and sealing them in the mouth of the golem, but either way, Noomi had never expected to see one in real life.

  Golem were nearly invincible unless their sacred words were destroyed.

  Noomi knelt, fascinated despite herself. “How in the world is he so lifelike?”

  All the golems she’d read about were roughly hewn clay or mud creatures. This one had skin and hair. Every detail had been rendered with exquisite detail. The verisimilitude was astounding. Even the marking on the forehead was subtle. More like a brand than a tattoo, it could have been confused for a scar. Only close inspection would have revealed that it was a word.

  “Someone has been making refinements to the original ritual,” Serin said with a little shrug. Her lack of alarm made Noomi think she’d seen a lifelike golem before.

  She shuddered delicately, but Serin had moved on. The Water Elemental turned to Daniel. “Did you see where the other one went?”

  He nodded. “Out the back. I’ll lead the way.”

  “Wait!” Noomi cried. “The other one is high fae.”

  Serin lifted a brow, but Daniel just raised his gun. “Then a plain old bullet should be all I need,” he replied.