The Elementals Collection

by L. B. Gilbert

  Great. Gia the Elemental, sworn enemy of my family, knows I have a crush on her. Perfect… just perfect.

  He trailed her to his cottage, then served their meal.

  Salvador decided being self-conscious was a waste of time. An Elemental realizing he had a crush on her was hardly the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to him. True, he couldn’t quite think of anything worse, but he would. He had faith it would come to him.

  Gia didn’t ask him what he was laughing about when he took the seat across from her. She just seemed to accept his strange behavior as par for the course. And why wouldn’t she? To her, he was just another Delavordo. And that reminds me…

  He waited until she had finished the meal he’d prepared before broaching the sensitive topic.

  “Alec left some wine,” he offered, holding up a Bordeaux that probably cost more than his healing practice made in a decade.

  She held up a wooden cup, then indicated the pitcher with her other hand. “After Sheol, clean water is the most decadent thing we can possibly drink.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” He put the bottle down with some regret. Alcohol might have helped, but could an Elemental even get drunk?

  Gia set her cup on the table. “What’s wrong?”

  Damn. Where did he start?

  “Actually… a lot.” Salvador rubbed his temple before forcing his hands flat on the wood’s surface. “Alec told me more details about your attacker and his plans for the Mother.”

  “Attempts like this have been made before, but you don’t need to concern yourself,” Gia assured him. “We will find him.”

  “I have no doubt of that,” he said, truly meaning it. “But it’s one of those previous attempts I need to speak to you about.”

  “I already know about Thiago and his plans for world domination.”

  The words were tinged with humor that didn’t match the events she referred to. But he appreciated her attempt to lighten the mood. It also reinforced his belief she didn’t know Thiago had almost killed him all those years ago. His parents had hushed that up rather well.

  “I, um, was actually referring to Ciro’s staff…and how he used it to reach the Mother.”

  Astonishment widened the Earth Elemental’s eyes. Then her lovely face hardened. “Ciro did what?”

  18

  It could be worse. Gia’s expression was cold, but at least she hadn’t crushed Salvador with a boulder or sucked him into a makeshift grave.

  “Well, it wasn’t exactly a staff.” Salvador held out his hands as if gripping two imaginary bars. “Have you seen a divining rod—the kind used for water witching?”

  “Dowsing,” Gia supplied shortly, her normally full lips compressing into a thin line. “Yes, I’m familiar with the method.”

  Dowsing rods and the practice of water witching were phenomena humans had trouble explaining. Using a forked stick or metal rod, a skilled witcher could find underground water sources with roughly ninety-percent accuracy. In fact, Gia was aware of some who had been right every time.

  “Let me guess,” Gia said, leaning forward to put an elbow on the table. She was starting to appear weary. “Ciro used his special divining rod to find weak spots in Earth’s surface in his attempt to get to the Mother.”

  Wincing, he corrected, “His successful attempt.”

  Gia held her hand up, closing and opening her eyes in an exaggerated fashion. “Debatable.”

  Uncomfortably, he shifted while she continued to visually dissect him. “The event was well before my time, of course, but it’s family lore.”

  “Ciro was never on our radar.”

  Salvador cleared his throat. “Yes, well, he died young. Personally, I believed his absence was the reason Thiago turned out the way he did. Ciro was his father, but I probably don’t need to tell you that.”

  “Your family tree is required study for new Elementals,” Gia acknowledged.

  Of course… He continued. “According to my grandmother, Ciro was a savant, a genius when it came to spellcraft, but he was socially inept and awkward. He used to put deodorant on the outside of his clothes because he never bothered to learn where it was supposed to go. His mind was completely consumed with magic and methodology.”

  Gia raised a brow at that, but she didn’t comment.

  “Anyway, he crafted a few objects with magical properties, charms, and other stuff.”

  She nodded. “The broom.”

  “Oh. You know about that.”

  Ciro had somehow managed to imbue a wooden broom with the ability to fly. In itself, that wasn’t unusual—most kids under the age of ten tried to make a broom fly at one point or another. It was a sort of a rite for members of the Seven families. But the best most could do was levitate for a few minutes. Ciro’s, however, could actually bear a person’s weight and hadn’t run out of steam—literally, because he’d added that as an effect—since it had been made, roughly sixty or so years ago.

  “I also remember when your cousin took the broom joyriding one Halloween.”

  Smugly, Salvador smirked. Risking exposure was a violation of the Covenant. “Analia was grounded for the rest of the year.”

  “I bet. So, why do you think Ciro’s divining rod worked?” she asked, picking up another piece of fry bread.

  “He said it did.”

  Her other eyebrow reached for the sky.

  “He wasn’t trying to end the world or anything like that,” he qualified. “According to family legend, Ciro simply wanted an audience with the Mother. I think he meant to ask for a boon of some kind, maybe more magic—I’m not really sure. It might have just been a challenge he wanted to overcome. He was that kind of practitioner. If it had never been done, then he would try it, regardless of the risk. He needed to know what would happen.”

  Gia’s sigh was long. “I’m familiar with the type. How did the divining rod work?”

  “According to legend, it found soft spots in Earth’s crust, the ones that led to passages your kind used to utilize to commune with Her.”

  The existence of those mythical tunnels wasn’t a secret precisely—more like a myth no one believed in anymore. Except for Ciro, of course.

  There was a lengthy silence.

  “I take it you’re not going to confirm those exist,” he muttered.

  Gia’s impossibly thick lashes briefly screened her eyes. “They used to—once upon a time. The Mother sealed them up over a millennia ago.”

  Damn, this was excruciating. “Err. Yes, well, Ciro’s hypothesis was that She had overlooked a few. He believed a skilled practitioner with the right tools could find such a passage.”

  “And he settled on a diving rod to help him find one?”

  He nodded. “Dowsing is where he got the inspiration. Something similar works for leylines, so I guess he figured it would do the job. It took him over a year to come up with a prototype he was satisfied with. One day, he took it out to test it. He came back weeks later claiming he’d been successful—to an extent. He said he’d reached Her, but she’d paid him no mind. He tried to get her attention with a demonstration of his magic, but Ciro couldn’t explain what happened next. One minute, he’d been there with Her. The next, he’d been topside, lying in the middle of a clearing somewhere in the American Midwest without any knowledge of how he got there. He’d lost over a week of time… Although, honestly, that part wasn’t unusual for him. Ciro hadn’t been a linear thinker, and it spilled over into every aspect of his life.”

  She ignored the last part. “What proof did he have that he reached Her?”

  It was only natural Gia would be skeptical. “None, really. Just his word. But my grandmother swore it was true. Ciro wasn’t the kind to lie or exaggerate. Deception was beyond him. His mind just didn’t work that way. If he’d been born later, I think he would have been diagnosed as neuroatypical.”

  Salvador broke off and reached for the water, suddenly parched. “Ciro returned to the family seat after his attempt—the house where
my parents now live. He needed more supplies as he’d decided to craft a second more potent divining rod. He’d left the original prototype behind when he went back out to try again. No one ever saw him after that.”

  “Did anyone try to use the prototype after he disappeared?” she asked.

  “My grandmother did, but she used it to search for Ciro, not the Mother. However, he had disappeared from the face of the earth. Truthfully, Ciro’s wife didn’t mind much. She was a Patel by birth, and it was an arranged match. She remarried into the Burgess clan a couple of years later.”

  And she hadn’t looked back—not even to periodically check on the child she’d left behind. Despite his tender years, Thiago had stayed with his grandmother. Any children from a Delavordo union always stayed within the family. That was what marriage was like in the Seven families.

  Gia crossed her arms. “Is there any chance your grandmother fabricated the story for Thiago’s sake?”

  The unexpected question made him snort with laughter. “Did you ever meet my grandmother?”

  Another flicker of her lashes. “Once or twice.”

  “And did she strike you as the kind of woman who would make up stories to spare someone’s feelings—even a child?”

  Gia tsked. “Okay, you have a point. What about the divining rod? Who has it now?”

  “It should be in the family vault. Anything Ciro made and left behind is in there, with the possible exception of the broom.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Your parents keep that vault locked down tight. It would be a suicide mission for a rogue practitioner to break in it. There is, however, the possibility they could simply hand it over to a collaborator.”

  He wanted to laugh. “No. My father doesn’t do alliances. Even if a skilled practitioner approached him, he would never deign to work with an outsider. I doubt he’d even give him an audience.”

  Gia considered this. “That may well be true, but the vault is open to members of your family, isn’t it?”

  He shook his head. “Not without my father’s leave, or at least that was how it worked when I left.”

  She drummed her fingers on the table. “You have many cousins who can gain access to the vault on another pretext.”

  “I do have many stupid relatives,” he acknowledged.

  Gia slapped her hands on the wooden surface, pushing up. She began to pace behind the bench. “John specializes in finding people—young and old—who are unsatisfied with their lot in life. He feeds their discontent, weaponizing it so they cause the most amount of damage. In that way, John is quite masterful.”

  Praise coming from an Elemental about how evil someone was, and, in a cosmic twist, it was not a member of his family. This does not bode well for the fate of the world.

  Damn, he did not want to do this, but what choice did he have?

  “Look,” he began. “I haven’t spoken to my parents in years. For this, though, I can get in touch with them. At the very least, I can make sure the divining rod is still in the vault.”

  The corner of Gia’s mouth turned up. “I’m afraid you will have to do much more than that.”

  A sinking feeling started in the pit of his stomach. “What did you have in mind?”

  Her smile grew devious. “I think it’s time you took me home to meet your parents.”

  19

  Alec hurried through the sodden city streets, the yellow light of the streetlamp reflecting in the puddles. He was glad it wasn’t raining, not because he felt the cold, but because his mate was out there somewhere.

  Technically, Diana didn’t feel the cold any more than he did. Sometimes, though, the rain steamed off her innate heat. It wasn’t enough to obscure her vision, but he didn’t like the idea of her having any handicaps when she fought.

  She’ll be fine. She always was.

  Alec had no shame in admitting Diana was the superior fighter. During one particularly heated battle, he’d actually hidden behind her. Well, he was a bit embarrassed about that, but he’d been holding a precious one-of-a-kind Shakespearean folio when they’d gotten ambushed. Letting it get damaged would have been a travesty of biblical proportions. His mate understood that, and she only teased him about it occasionally.

  A cold blast of wind flattened his hair. It smelled of more rain. He hurried his steps, his mating bond pointing the way.

  Something slithered out from behind a dumpster. He stopped, sensing something Otherkind. The creature finally slid into view.

  A furry little Fae, some kind of subspecies of brownie, grinned at him with its razor-sharp teeth before skittering past.

  Briefly, he considered following it. Those particular creatures were sometimes taken in by hapless humans who thought they were cats. Brownies loved to mess with humans. For the most part, they enjoyed living like domesticated animals…until they subtly took over their human’s lives. Entire families were bamboozled. He’d heard plenty of stories, but none of the vicious little Turks had been known to harm human children, so Alec gave them a pass. Besides, Diana was expecting him.

  Alec continued, streaking through the wet city streets as fast as he could when unobserved. When the water from an awning dripped a particularly fat stream of water down his collar, he took out his phone, texting his car service to meet them at the edge of the park. That was where his mating sense told him he would find Diana.

  He hadn’t expected the park to have a fence. However, the edge bordered a small ravine. The leap from the bottom to the top of the fence was around fifteen feet, but he made the jump with only a single step in between for leverage. He cleared the bushes on the other side by a few inches.

  Thankfully, due to the weather and the time of night, there was no one to witness his superhuman feat.

  The action was in the northern edge of the park in a wide, tree-bordered clearing and the hedge that marked the boundary on this side.

  Alec ran, wondering why the hell he could only hear one heartbeat, yet make out many pairs of feet. Fuck. Diana was surrounded… and her adversaries were vampires. And that wasn’t the worst part. Although they all appeared to be different ages and nationalities, they were all roughly the same age—newborns hot off their transitions.

  A chill ran through him. Even for the magically endowed, becoming a vampire was an arduous process. Normal humans had no way to sustain the change. Most died in the attempt. Only a few had enough of a predisposition to the supernatural to survive the attempt.

  Six… seven… eight. To have this many survivors pointed to an exponential body county. And these left were too thin, literally half-starved despite their fine clothes.

  Eight was too many mouths to feed, even for his coven. It wasn’t impossible, but it required double or triple that number of vampires to act as guardians—to keep the newborn under control—and many more willing blood donors. Or slightly fewer unwilling ones.

  Like a rabid pack of wild dogs, the vampires surrounded his mate, making a wide circle around her. Slipping off his coat, Alec rested it on a nearby bench—no sense in ruining his new Stefano Ricci—ready to charge if Diana needed him. She rarely did. But he always got ready, just in case.

  However, it appeared as if tonight might be the night. The circle of hungry vampires silently closed in on his mate.

  Trained. They had been trained. Most newborns didn’t have the wherewithal or control to accomplish that. Damn. She has to kill them all.

  So many newly turned vamps with training spelled big trouble. He had hoped… but no. They couldn’t afford to spare any. Without resentment, Alec accepted their fate.

  The leader’s voice was raspy, but he could still make out what she said.

  “We are going to kill you, witch.”

  Well, if that was what they thought his mate was, the poor bastards didn’t stand a chance.

  Diana ignited her hands, startling the underlings. The leader didn’t panic until his mate clapped her hands behind her, then clasped them in front, forming a sustained ring of fire.

 
Di raised her, pushing her palms out. The move sent the flames hurtling forward—a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees of fiery death.

  Only two or three of the newborns managed to escape the blast. The slow ones tried to scramble out of the path, but the fire caught them anyway—stray sparks catching and igniting their clothes. The flames spread like hellfire, burning their adversaries to dust as he watched.

  This part was easier when it wasn’t other vamps.

  Dian’s sword flashed as a survivor launched himself at her. The big motherfucker was fast, but his mate bent backward in a Matrix-worthy movement. She braced her weight on her hands, using her feet and his own momentum to send him flying over her. The heavy asshole crashed next to where Alec waited with a silver knife. It only took a moment to remove the head.

  He picked it up, then showed it to his mate.

  “You and the heads,” Diana groused. She didn’t roll her eyes, but she wanted to. He could always tell.

  In the meantime, the last vampire had picked up something from the ground. She removed two weapons, one for each hand.

  “Is that a super-soaker?” Diana asked incredulously.

  “Diana, stay back,” Alec yelled. Flashing in front of her at full speed, he threw his arms up in an effort to shield her. A water gun could only mean one thing—it was full of the venom John had created.

  “You’re one of us,” the female snarled, her tone disbelieving.

  Alec did a double take. He hadn’t looked at this female closely enough on his first assessment. This one wasn’t a newborn. He’d put her at nearly twenty years after her turn. And she was strong. Any coven would have been proud to claim her.

  “It’s too late,” Diana murmured. “Her aura is nearly black.”

  Fuck.

  “You actually side with this bitch?” the female spat.

  “Were you going to kill her?” he asked, jerking his head in Diana’s direction.

  “Yes.”

  “Of course I do, then.”