Elementals 2: The Blood of the Hydra

by Michelle Madow

  “I don’t know.” The siren yawned, her head lulling to the side. Danielle splashed the rest of the water in her face, and she jerked up, her eyes hooded as she looked around. “Where am I?” she slurred. “Why do I feel like I’ve been run over by a chariot?”

  I stood up, sick of trying the same thing and getting nowhere. “This isn’t working,” I said. “All the gray energy is just making her confused. And even if she knows the answers, she won’t be able to tell them to us if she’s so out of it that she can’t remember how she got here.”

  “Or maybe she’s just pretending she doesn’t remember anything, so that we’ll get all compassionate and stop questioning her,” Danielle said, holding up the empty glass. “I’m going to fill this back up so we can try again.”

  “No.” Blake stepped in front of Danielle, blocking her path. “Nicole’s right.”

  “Of course you’re on her side.” Danielle rolled her eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “It’s not about sides.” He stood strong, his eyes blazing with determination. “It’s about facts. Gray energy is what the Elders use to manipulate memories. We barely know what we’re doing with it—but we’re definitely messing with her memories, and it’s not helping. If anything, it’s making this worse. We need to try something else.”

  “Like what?” Danielle asked.

  “I can try using white energy to take away the gray energy we made her drink,” I said. “I’m not sure if it’ll work, but if it does, at least she’ll remember how she got here.”

  “Good idea,” Blake said. “You think it’ll work on the siren the same way it did when you removed the gray energy that Danielle put into your tennis racket last month?”

  “You told her about that?” Danielle’s mouth dropped open, and she stepped away from Blake. “I told you not to say anything.”

  “And you promised that you would stop using gray energy, and then you turned around and used it on Nicole,” he said. “So let’s call it even.”

  “Whatever.” She huffed and glared at me. “Just because you could remove gray energy from a tennis racket doesn’t mean you can remove it from a siren.”

  “Maybe not.” I stepped closer to the siren, kneeling down so my gaze was level with hers. Despite her eyes being watery from the flu, they were an otherworldly, startling shade of sea green that made it clear she wasn’t human. She was so tired that she could barely keep them open. “Can one of you untie her hands?” I asked the others. “It’ll be easier to do this if my palms can connect with hers.”

  Her lips quivered as Chris unbound her wrists, but she didn’t turn away from my gaze. “Why are you all doing this to me?” she asked again, her voice shaky and meek. “I swear I don’t know anything. Won’t you please let me go?”

  “The gray energy confused you.” I reached forward and held onto both of her hands, so our palms met. “I’m going to use white energy to push away the gray energy clouding your thoughts. Then, if you answer our questions and we can prove that you were telling the truth, we’ll let you go. Deal?”

  “And if I still don’t know the answers?” she asked.

  Blake flicked on his lighter and passed a ball of fire back and forth in his hands. “If you know the answers after Nicole cleans the gray energy out of your system, then you should tell us everything you know,” he said. “If you do, then we’ll let you go. If you don’t…” He stared at the ball of fire, the flames growing higher, and let the threat hang in the air.

  “Then you’ll burn me?” She laughed, but it was raspy, and broke up when she started coughing. “You don’t have it in you to hurt me. None of you do.”

  Blake held her gaze and sent a few sparks flying onto her arm.

  “Ow!” She flinched. “That hurt.”

  He closed his fist, the fire disappearing within it. “It’ll hurt more if you don’t cooperate,” he warned.

  Tina sniffed, rubbing the place on her arm that was already turning red where the sparks had burned her. I looked up at Blake and swallowed. Even though I knew he was doing this to benefit us, in that moment, I couldn’t help feeling slightly scared of him.

  But then I thought about Orthrus, and about the hideous harpy that had tried to kill us last month in the cave. None of us had thought twice before attacking either of them. And while Tina might not have her power right now, she was still dangerous. How many innocent people had she lured to their deaths? She’d also sided with the Titans during the Second Rebellion. Meaning that she’d wanted to destroy the Olympian rulers and let the world slip into chaos.

  As I took her hand back in mine, I reminded myself that while she might look like a china doll, she was still dangerous. I couldn’t let myself forget that.

  “Will this hurt?” she asked me, her voice soft. “What you’re about to do?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m a healer. But if you don’t give my friends and me the information that we need, I will not waste a bit of my energy to heal you after they finish with you.”

  With that, I closed my eyes, my hands still wrapped around hers, and cleared my mind of everything but the white energy surrounding me. Last month, I had to focus really hard to absorb the energy and channel it, but now I did it on instinct. Warmth flooded my body as the white orbs of light rushed through my veins, and I directed it through my palms and into the siren, pushing the gray energy out of her body and back out into the Universe.

  Once I could feel no more remnants of gray energy inside of her, I pulled my hands out of hers and stepped back. Her eyes were clearer now, less tired, and her skin flushed with renewed life.

  I stood up to look down on her, even though at five feet four inches, I wasn’t exactly intimidating. “Do you remember anything now?” I asked.

  “I remember how I got here.” She sneezed again, and now that her arms were free, she reached for a tissue and blew her nose. I never knew that such a loud sound could come out of such a tiny creature. “But I still don’t have the answers to your questions. So you might as well plunge that sword into my heart right now and put me out of my misery.”

  “You would like that, wouldn’t you?” Danielle took a few steps forward, her hand on the hilt of her sword. “Because you know that if we do that, you’ll be able to come back.”

  The siren just stared at her, saying nothing.

  “Well?” Danielle prodded her.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re lying,” Kate said, so softly that it was eerie how confident she sounded. “You don’t want to die. And you’re used to using your voice to convince people that everything you say is true, so you’ve never had anyone doubt you. But I don’t believe you for one second.”

  “Your loss, then.” The siren smiled, and I knew at once that Kate was right. Why did we think the siren might go along with us and answer our questions? She was thousands of years old. I couldn’t fathom how young we must seem to her.

  If we wanted information, we weren’t going to get it by being nice.

  I picked my bow off the floor, got into stance, and readied the arrow. “Blake?” I said, keeping my eyes on the siren. “Give me fire. I’ll make sure to aim anywhere except for her heart.”

  He raised an eyebrow in question, as if asking if I was sure about this. But I didn’t budge. So he tossed a fireball at the arrow, lighting up the tip. The siren’s eyes were locked on mine, like she was daring me to go through with it. She must not think I would.

  I pulled back on the string, ready to shoot.

  “Wait!” she said, and while I didn’t shoot, I didn’t move, either. “I can tell you what you want to know. Just don’t shoot me with that. Please?”

  I looked over at Kate, and she nodded for me to lower my weapon. I did.

  “Want me to put the fire out?” Danielle asked.

  “No,” I said. “Keep it burning. In case I need to shoot fast.”

  I didn’t really need the fire—Blake could aim at the siren from this distance, and a shot
from the arrow would hurt even if it weren’t flaming. But the siren seemed terrified of fire, and we needed to use every intimidation technique possible.

  Kate stepped closer to the siren, her hand on her gun. “First question,” she said. “How did you, Orthrus, and the harpy get here? And why did you come first instead of the powerful monsters, like the Titans?”

  “That’s two questions,” Tina said. “Not one.”

  Blake threw a fireball straight at her hair, which was draped over the back of the chair, as long and shiny as a mermaid’s.

  “Put it out!” she yelled, followed by a string of curse words that I couldn’t have imagined coming out of her delicate mouth.

  Danielle just crossed her arms and smirked.

  “We were able to escape because the portal between Earth and Kerberos is weakened,” the siren said, her words coming out fast as she eyed up her flaming hair. “The portal detects magic to know what to keep out. It’s getting weaker every day, but for now, only those of us who aren’t as powerful are able to sneak through. The big guys are still stuck.” She looked at Danielle expectantly. “There’s your answer, so put out the fire now!”

  “Only because I hate the smell of burning hair.” Danielle flicked her wrist at the cup of water on the floor, and the water shot up into an arc, dumping straight onto the siren’s head. The fire sizzled out, but the bottom half of her hair was burned to a crisp.

  “Wow.” Chris whistled. “You’re going to want to see a stylist about that.”

  “Shut up,” she said, although the power behind the words was lost, since it was followed by a fit of coughing.

  “How much longer until the portal is weak enough for the Titans to get through?” Kate asked.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “I didn’t put the portal there.”

  Blake flicked his lighter, and the siren flinched back.

  “But if I had to guess, it’ll be a few more months for it to get to that point,” she said, relaxing when Blake put the fire out. “Around the time of the summer solstice.”

  “Good,” Kate said. “And I have one more question.”

  The siren glared at her, but said nothing. At least she understood that she wasn’t in the position to barter.

  “What happens when we shoot you in the heart with our weapons?”

  “We disappear,” the siren said, not missing a beat. “But you know that.”

  I raised my bow, which had the intended effect of making her shrink away. “Where do you go when you disappear?” I asked. “We thought we’d killed Orthrus, but he came back. How?”

  Blake focused on the fire on my arrow, and it grew taller. But the siren still said nothing.

  “Would the same thing happen if I shot you through the head?” I asked, raising my weapon to aim at the proposed target. “Would you disappear?”

  “Why don’t you try it and find out?” she said sweetly.

  “That’s a yes,” Kate said, and I nodded, since I’d already assumed so. “Don’t do it, or you’ll be giving her what she wants.”

  Instead, I shot the arrow so it grazed her arm—slicing the skin open enough to draw blood. She threw her head back and screamed, and I strung another arrow through my bow, ready to shoot again.

  “When we disappear, we go back to Kerberos.” She turned away from my bow, as if that would be enough to stop me from shooting her again. “Once there, we heal, and when our strength returns we can leave again. Try as you may, no human weapon will be strong enough to kill any of us.”

  “We’re not human,” Chris said. “We’re witches. And Nicole’s a demigod.”

  “You all have human blood in you.” The siren shrugged. “Same difference.”

  “If none of our weapons will kill you, then what will?” Blake asked.

  The siren tossed back her charred hair and laughed. “As if I’ll ever tell you.”

  “I’m going to ask you the question again.” Blake flicked on his lighter, creating a fireball in his hand. “If our weapons don’t kill you, what will?” He reached forward and held the fire to the siren’s leg, which was bound to the chair. She let out a bloodcurdling scream, struggling so much that the chair tipped over, dumping her into fetal position on the floor. Blake leaned next to her and held the fire in the same spot, burning her skin until she begged him to stop. “Are you ready to answer the question now?” he asked.

  “Never,” she hissed, spitting into the flames.

  Danielle walked over to the siren and unsheathed her sword. “Then you have no use to us anymore,” she said, plunging the weapon straight into the siren’s heart.

  The siren let out one last final gasp and disappeared.

  Kate rushed to where the siren had been sprawled out only seconds ago, as if she might still be able to find her there. But she was gone. “What was that for?” she asked Danielle, pointing at the empty space where the siren had been. “She might have told us what we wanted!”

  Danielle stepped back, casually holding the sword that was smothered with the siren’s blood. “No, she wouldn’t have,” she said calmly. “Not if she wanted to preserve her own life. Which I can guarantee you that she did.”

  “We could have made a deal with her,” I said. “If she’d told us how to kill the monsters permanently, we could have spared her life.”

  “And would we have stuck to that bargain?” Danielle smiled, as if she thought she had me cornered.

  “Yes.” I stood strong. “She might not have expected us to—she might not have even done so if she were in our shoes—but we’re better than that. We would have honored the deal.”

  “Except that you just said it yourself—she wouldn’t have expected us to stick with it,” Danielle said. “So she would have had no reason to trust us with the information we’d asked for. Trying to talk to her for any longer would have been a waste of our time.”

  Kate stepped between us, putting her arms out to stop the fighting. “What’s done is done,” she said, looking back and forth between the two of us. “But at least we know that somehow, there’s a way to permanently kill these monsters. We just need to find someone else—someone on our side, so we know they can be trusted—who can help us figure out what that way is.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  When I woke up the next morning, one of the first things I noticed was a package resting on my windowsill. I’d been checking every day, since the last time I’d woken up to find something there, it had been a necklace with an A carved into the pendent. I kept the necklace safe in my jewelry box, since I didn’t want to risk losing it during training. While I couldn’t say for sure, I suspected it was a gift from Apollo—my father.

  Ever since receiving the necklace, I’d been hoping to hear from him again. So I pushed open the window and reached for the package. It was a brown parcel, tied together with twine. I undid the knot and opened it, revealing a handwritten note inside.

  To get the answers you seek, all you must do is touch the Book and ask. –A

  It was written in perfect script. I read it a few more times, as if there would be a secret message to decode, but came up with nothing. The note must be literal.

  I had to let the others know, but first, I had to write back to “A.” Because I needed answers, too.

  So I pulled a piece of paper out of a notebook and started to write.

  Hi… I’m not quite sure what to say—I guess this is the first time we’ve ever “talked.” If this is who I think it is, there’s so much I want to ask you. But it’s too much to say in a note. Will we ever be able to meet?

  I didn’t sign it, because he would know who it was from. Instead, I folded it up and wrapped it inside the parcel, writing “To: A” on the outside.

  I placed it on the windowsill, and then texted the others. Because if what Apollo had said in the note was correct, then this might be the clue we needed about how to access the Book.

  Today, after school, we had to test it out for ourselves.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN
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  I showed the others the note when I saw them at school, and that afternoon, we sat in Darius’s living room, gathered around the Book of Shadows.

  “So, you think this note is literal?” Kate asked after reading it again. She reached for the Book, but pulled back, as if afraid she might hurt it. “We can just touch the Book, and it will somehow answer us?”

  “That’s what the note says.” I shrugged. “Do you want to try it?”

  “Yes.” She nodded, her eyes eager. “If that’s okay with you?”

  “Of course.” I motioned for her to go ahead. Kate had done so much for me since I’d arrived in Kinsley—she’d caught me up on everything I needed to know about witches—and she was so excited to see if this worked. She should be the one to try first. “Go ahead.”

  She situated herself in front of the Book, laid her hands on the cover, and closed her eyes. “How do we kill the creatures escaping from Kerberos?” She spoke slowly, as if that would help the Book understand her. Then she opened her eyes and lifted her hands, looking down at the Book in question. “Do I just… open it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know any more than you do,” I said. “But yes, that seems like it would make sense.”

  “Right.” She hovered over the Book and took a deep breath, wringing her fingers together. “Here goes nothing.” She opened the Book and flipped through the pages, her expression blank as she looked through them.

  “Well?” Danielle asked, tapping her fingers on her knee.

  “There’s still nothing there.” Kate sat back on her heels and sighed. “It’s empty.”

  “So much for that,” Chris said. “Looks like we’re back to where we were last night.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” Blake rested his elbows on his knees, staring at the Book. “Nicole was the only one who could lift the Book from the stand. Maybe she should ask it what’s inside.”