Lost Causes

by Mia Marshall

We watched each other, and I saw the moment he began his own fight. Oblivion called, but I resisted. I forced my eyes open, though it was the only movement I could still make.

  “Not possible,” Eila repeated. “You must give it to me.”

  Mac shook his head, his jaw locked.

  She’d found it. The residual water that lived inside him, entangled with his own shifter power. The part missing from the threads she twisted between her hands.

  “Do,” I managed, my tongue heavy. We’d tried to retrieve that small piece once before, but the bear living inside him refused.

  “I can’t,” he managed.

  Eila’s coloring sped up, cycling through each element in the space of a single second. “He is yours,” she accused. “You have tainted him.”

  Mac’s face relaxed the moment Eila stopped her exploration.

  “I cannot finish.” She waved a hand, dismissing both of us. “She will not be complete. It matters not. His animal is weakened. It protects the girl instead of himself. I have no use for such a creature.”

  “You promised.” My voice disappeared on the last syllable.

  “As did the shifter. We both spoke words without meaning.”

  Mac’s roar suggested he wasn’t impressed by her argument, and the enormous black bear that appeared in place of the man seemed to agree. The grasping ground released him as his feet became paws.

  Eila did nothing, too fascinated to move.

  Mac charged. A moment before he reached her, she dispersed, leaving him with nothing to attack. He lumbered around, as fast as a seven-foot bear could move, but it would never be fast enough.

  I tried to hang on, but sometimes determination and denial aren’t enough. If there were any tears left, I’d have cried then, knowing I was leaving Mac and Sera alone, but even that was beyond me. My eyes drifted shut.

  It should have been my end, but magic had other plans.

  Power slammed into me, and I woke with a gasp.

  Eila was distracted. All her attention was on Mac fighting to reach her, and her gaze was more covetous than bothered. The threads she’d toyed with and bent and eventually sewn together had been forgotten, and they did what magic always does. They returned home.

  I stretched every part of my body, down to the tips of my fingers and toes, letting the muscles and bones and blood return to life as power filled them.

  I’d known strength before. Both sides of my magic were impressive on their own, and when I combined them I thought I was the most powerful creature alive.

  That was a fraction of what I felt now. The fire and water were a single piece, no longer writhing against each other but connected, fused together until I couldn’t tell one from the other.

  I howled my victory to the night. The surrounding trees burst into flames, the fire so hot they were incinerated in moments.

  A wave followed, twenty feet high. It crashed over everyone, drenching Eila. I found Luke swimming toward us and pulled him to shore.

  The residents who’d been woken by the noise stopped halfway to us, watching from a safe distance.

  This wasn’t the cold madness I’d known before. This was hot and angry.

  I couldn’t burn Eila or drown her. I doubted she could be physically harmed, but I could destroy her home. I could burn their trees, flood their camp. I could hold every last person in my grip and send them to safety on another island.

  They could be free. We all could.

  As quickly as the power arrived, it settled. My knees buckled and I fell to the earth, my human side too weak. It seemed even a cured dual needed a few minutes to recover from a short case of death. I reached for the surrounding water and burning embers, needing to heal myself. Destruction of a psychotic first’s home needed to drop down the priority list for a while.

  Eila forced the water back to the ocean and extinguished any remaining flames. The wave grasped Luke as it slid past the beach and hauled him back out to sea. Like that, the chaos stopped.

  “She lives. She is almost whole.” Though Eila watched me, the words were meant for Mac. “Shift.”

  “What do you mean, almost?” Sera sounded like Eila could tell her the sky was blue and she’d still be suspicious of anything the creature said.

  “I mean she is not whole.” Eila was confused, as if the explanation should be self-evident. “The bear keeps the rest.”

  Mac shifted in a hurry. Eila’s gaze locked on his naked form.

  He gathered the remnants of his torn clothes and wrapped them around his waist. “Is this true, Aidan?”

  I managed a shrug. “I feel pretty damn complete. Also, alive and sane. If I’m not struggling after the whole tsunami and bonfire combo, I think we’re doing okay.”

  Eila ignored me. “She cannot be whole. The bonding was incomplete.”

  I checked the cord, looking for any holes or gaps. The fusion was flawless, the two magics inseparable.

  Then I found it. It was minuscule, a tiny section of fire missing the matching water that resided in Mac’s core. It was a loose thread, one I instinctively knew I must never pull.

  “I’ll be okay,” I reassured Mac and Sera.

  As soon as I spoke, I knew it was true. My magic didn’t rule me. I controlled it, and I wouldn’t touch that forbidden strand. I knew it as certainly as I knew my own name.

  I stood. My legs were unsteady, but they held. “Now we get to leave.”

  Eila’s attention was completely fixed on Mac. “They may depart. Though incomplete, she has deemed the cure acceptable. I did not lie. You cannot lie, either.”

  “I thought I was tainted,” he reminded her. “You didn’t want me.”

  “I was incorrect.” The word sounded especially foreign in her mouth. “You possess the wildness of a shifter. She has not ruined you.”

  “Have so,” I muttered.

  “The agreement was made. You will come with me.”

  Mac laughed, a short bark with no humor. “We spoke words without meaning, remember?”

  Her eyes flashed black. “You believe it is your choice.”

  His smile contained a hint of amusement. “I know it is. Unless you want an unwilling partner?”

  Eila exploded, unable to contain her rage, then reformed an inch from Mac. She was as tall as he was, pitch black eyes meeting his brown ones. “You agreed. You agreed.” She spoke as if the repetition was enough to make it true.

  “Perhaps you’ve told us the whole truth, but I don’t believe you.” He narrowed his eyes. “Let them go. Aidan and Sera, Luke. Everyone in the camp who wants to leave. Let them go, and give them enough time to get away from you, however far that is. When you’ve done that, you will have what you want.”

  “I accept.” She answered before he even finished speaking, flitting backwards. She no longer felt the need to loom over him.

  “No, no, no.” She couldn’t have accepted his offer. It meant giving up everything—all her pets, all her food. We’d been so damn close. “Hell no. It’s done, Mac. I’m good. Cured. See? Sane as a… really sane thing.” I swallowed. “You can’t stay.”

  Mac looked at me. His eyes held no doubt. “We got what we came for. This is the final cost. It’s not even that high, and it will get us off the island. You really think we’ll all make it by fighting our way off?”

  “We’re going to try,” I argued. I would argue until the volcano below us rose to the surface before I let him follow through on that offer.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked.

  I trusted him more than I trusted the sun to rise, but I didn’t trust her. I knew with a bone-deep certainty that if I left Mac with Eila, I’d never see him again.

  Good thing I had another plan.

  “Right back at you.” I told him. “You’ve got to trust me, too. Did you really think I’d offer a deal where you spending a night with someone else was an option?”

  I gave him what I hoped was a confident smile. It was time to test the theory I’d formed on my race down the mountain.
>
  After all, there had to be a reason Eila was afraid to cure Luke, and a reason she’d flung him into the ocean the minute his power was fused. Deborah and Michael hadn’t even been allowed to set foot on the island. She kept the strongest elementals as food sources, but none of them were fulls.

  Somehow, fulls were Eila’s weakness.

  I’d been two halves. Now I was a full. One she’d allowed to stay a few minutes too long because of her desire for Mac—and her belief that I wouldn’t figure this out so soon.

  My strength built, the same irresistible energy I’d felt before. Sera’s fire kindled and stretched toward me, her magic augmenting my own.

  I’d planned to assault Eila, but Sera’s touch distracted me. Behind us, the camp began to burn, though I was careful and gave the residents plenty of time to gather their few belongings and get to safety. They were already awake, drawn by our noise. No one would be harmed. I’d make sure of it.

  There was only one woman on this island who needed to die.

  But I didn’t know how to kill her. She was pure magic, and magic had been around since the dawn of creation. I had no idea if it could be destroyed.

  Still holding Sera’s fire, I called to the ocean. I was feeling pretty damn immortal myself at that moment. I fueled the wave with a glorious burst of power and slammed every part of a full’s strength against Eila. The first creature staggered under the assault, inhuman eyes widening. I was almost too astounded by my success to plan another attack. Eila struggled to recover from my assault.

  She feared fulls because they could damage her.

  My victory was short-lived. Eila stood, and with eyes dark as flint, she gathered her own power, everything she’d been given at her creation and everything she’d stolen from others, and she attacked in turn. The ground beneath my and Sera’s feet erupted, launching us into the air. Eila’s grin was pure malevolence. It was both the least and most human expression I’d ever seen on her face.

  I struck, flames and waves battering her from every side. Nothing slowed her.

  Ice shards encircled me and Sera. Sharp points stabbed us again and again, dozens of tiny wounds. I healed as fast as she cut me, and I melted the deadliest shards, but I was growing distracted, spending too much time defending when I needed to attack.

  “You ask me to lower myself.” Her voice echoed. It sounded like the night itself spoke to us. “You play with agreements you do not keep. You believe you can trick me. You dare believe you can control a force older than the stars above us. You are nothing to me, and only when you become mine will your pale lives be given meaning.”

  “Eila.” It was the first time Mac used her name. It was his final attempt at seduction.

  She didn’t even look at him. “Someday, you will come to me, shifter, and you will beg me to take you, because that is the only way you will ever join your incomplete woman.”

  Incomplete. Missing a piece. Not whole.

  Cold understanding hit me like a slap to the face. I’d based this entire plan on whatever mystical control fulls held over Eila—and I wasn’t a full. I was ninety-nine point nine percent elemental, but so long as Mac carried that final piece, it wasn’t enough.

  I’d made a huge mistake. We were going to lose.

  Eila retrieved all the magic at her disposal and gathered it to her. Her hands circled each other, creating a smaller and smaller ball. As she touched each thread, she grew more solid, her body appearing to be formed of flesh and bone like the rest of us.

  When she was done, an orb of pure magic hovered in the air. She didn’t need to chuck it at us like a pitcher. She only needed to will it toward our bodies. Our human halves would be ripped apart, releasing pure magic. Magic that Eila would claim forever.

  For the second time that day, I prepared to face death.

  For the second time, death had other plans.

  Eila vanished. One moment she towered above us, and the next there was only empty air. The ball of weaponized magic vanished with her.

  “What the…” I muttered. I ran to the spot where she’d just stood. It was empty, not even a hint of power.

  Three large darts lay on the ground.

  Three large tranquilizer darts, the sort that could hold a serum designed to neutralize magic.

  “I said you would need a ninja. When will you learn I am always right?” I turned, a grin already forming, to find Simon standing a hundred feet away with a tranquilizer gun in his hands.

  CHAPTER 21

  “Is she dead?” I whispered, afraid any noise would summon her back.

  “Ding dong.” Sera stood next to me and tested the air. “No fire energy. Nothing.”

  “But the drug doesn’t destroy magic,” I said, uncertain. “It only turns it off for a bit.”

  Mac’s brow creased in thought. “It could be different. She had no humanity.”

  “Literally or figuratively,” I said. “It could wear off. It always did for me. How full were those darts?”

  Vivian emerged from the trees, Jet trailing.

  “I think the official term is a buttload,” Jet said. “All we had left.”

  I kept checking the air, afraid Eila would reappear with no warning. “Maybe she’s dead. Maybe not. We can’t be sure. Which means…”

  For approximately three seconds, my friends stared at each other, then we leapt into motion. We threw questions and answers back and forth, making plans with each step. We could have hours to escape, or we could have minutes.

  For the second time, I retrieved Luke from the Pacific and brought him soaring lightly over the trees on a wave.

  He landed on his feet and took in the chaos in a single glance. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Where’s Ani?”

  “She took the elementals we freed, though one insisted on coming with me to camp. The rest headed for the other side of the mountain. If you follow the coast, you’ll meet up with them.”

  Sera didn’t hesitate. “I’m not leaving her.” She sprinted toward the northeast. At a steady clip, it was a thirty-minute walk. At the rate she was going, she’d be there in five.

  The residents hadn’t moved. They watched the chaos with equal parts shock and uncertainty.

  “Can someone check on the camp? See who’s going with us?” I asked.

  Luke took off and Mac followed.

  “Wait!” I called them back.

  The residents watched from a distance, unsure about their next step.

  I crouched and placed both hands on the ground. I probed until I found the fat veins of magic running through the land. With a grin, I drew on the single thread within me. It was going to be many years before I tired of finding fused power instead of broken pieces.

  I wasn’t capable of removing all the energy embedded in the ground. Only the fire and water belonged to me, but this was a Hawaiian island, and those were its dominant elements. I couldn’t claim an elemental’s power like a first could—but unlike people, land wasn’t sentient. There was no battle of wills as I drew large swathes of magic, enriching myself and minimizing the island’s hold on those who stood upon it.

  I sat back, exhilarated, and watched free will return to people who’d long ago stopped looking for it. They studied each other and the burning camp, as if they were doubtful about where they were or how they got there.

  “Now.” I said. “Now they may be ready to go. Vivian, what’s the plan for getting off?”

  “We’re anchored there.” She indicated a spot to the southeast. Jet adjusted her arm until it pointed due east.

  I found the vessel with ease, but the anchor was no lightweight. This wasn’t the same boat that brought us here. That one would have been hard-pressed to hold fifteen people, and only if they didn’t have personal space issues.

  I directed a little magic toward the ocean, telling it to loosen the sand that gripped the anchor. “Did you bring a freaking yacht? How many can it hold?”

  “Everyone, of course.” While the others ran around like
mad, Simon strolled around the camp, examining the evidence of the final battle.

  “You had a lot of faith in me.”

  “This was not our doing.” Simon’s lips curled upwards in a secret smile. “Though I am unsurprised to see you cured at last.”

  “How did you find us?”

  Simon held up a tiny electronic screen with a red dot. Jet’s tracker had done its job.

  The anchor released in a sudden burst, the boat practically flying toward me.

  I no longer controlled it. “Guys?”

  Before they could answer, thunder rolled across the island.

  It wasn’t a storm. It was dozens of feet pounding toward me. A few of them carried bags, but most brought nothing but themselves. Packing would have slowed their escape. A steady stream of camp residents hurried past me, heading to a rescue most hadn’t known they wanted.

  Mac led the way, and Luke brought up the rear. Luke was in bare feet, and he’d lost his shirt during his repeated trips to the sea. Now he wore nothing but a pair of dripping cotton pants and a big old grin.

  Behind Luke, Tricia supported the exhausted desert who’d been on the mountain. They moved with a shuffling gait, as fast as they could with the woman’s limited strength. Though the desert cast hateful glances at Tricia, she didn’t reject her help.

  “We’re almost there,” Tricia urged.

  “Mama!” A desert fought against the tide of refugees. “They said… I couldn’t believe.”

  It took me a moment to place her. I’d seen her at breakfast on our first day, the desert who didn’t appear to like Luke. It made sense now. If he’d become Eila’s new pet desert, her mother would have been devoured.

  The daughter wrapped her mother in a tight hug. Neither of them was able to speak, but words weren’t necessary. There was both joy and suffering in their reunion, and it was all I could do not to break down sobbing.

  Tears ran in rivers down Tricia’s cheeks.

  The small family hobbled toward freedom.

  I checked in with the beach elemental. “Is that everyone?”

  “Yes. No one chose to stay.”

  “Good.” I glanced over her shoulder at the abandoned camp in the distance. Any building that remained standing, I burned to the ground. “Let’s go.”