by Shéa MacLoed
The point was, I'd found new people to help me through it. Kabita was one of them. Inigo was another. Was that what he was doing? Finding someone new to help him? Did he realize I understood what he was going through? That I'd been there? That I wanted to be there for him? Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he wanted to be around someone who didn't get it. Someone normal. Not like me. It was hard to pretend you were normal if you spent any time in my world.
As I lay in the bath thinking about my boyfriend—or whatever he was now—I found myself becoming increasingly morose. There's nothing like the thought that your boyfriend is slowly dumping you for something over which you had no control to make a girl feel thoroughly depressed. I'd barely noticed the water growing colder by the minute. I was too wrapped up in thoughts of Inigo. Too busy being miserable. My gloomy thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.
Room service. My stomach rumbled as I started to clamber out of the bathtub and realized I was stuck. I couldn't move. The water around me had turned into a solid block of ice.
Chapter Seventeen
Thank gods for bathroom phones in good hotels. I snatched it off the wall and dialed Trevor's room even as my teeth began to chatter. When he picked up, he sounded half-asleep.
"You need to get a copy of my room key and get in here now," I snapped. I slammed the phone down without waiting for his response. Goose pimples had broken out pretty much everywhere, and I couldn't feel my legs.
I'd already turned on the hot water tap, but it wasn't cutting it. My body kept turning the water cool the minute it touched my skin. The ice simply wasn't melting fast enough, and the water level was already precariously close to spilling over the top of the tub. I had no choice but to turn off the taps.
Out of desperation, I grabbed the plastic shower curtain and yanked it from its hooks. It collapsed on me like it was going to smother the breath from my lungs. Panicked, I batted it away from my face and wrapped it around me as best I could. There was nothing I could do about the lower half of my body, currently encased in ice. I tried to call the Fire, but it was as if the powers inside me had gone to sleep. All I could do was wait.
At some point, the knocking on my door had stopped. Damn. There went my dinner plans. My stomach grumbled in protest.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I heard Trevor at the door. "Morgan?" he called.
"In the bathroom," I replied.
He stepped to the door, stopped, and stared. "What the hell?"
"Good question," I said, teeth chattering. "One m-minute I'm taking a bath, and the next my b-bathwater is frozen s-solid." I swished the curtain aside so he could see my legs in their ice block. It was like Han Solo on a really bad day.
"Call the Fire" he said, kneeling beside the tub.
"Y-you think I-I didn't try that?" I said testily. "Apparently, my powers have gone on vacation." Actually that didn't sound like a bad idea. Maybe I needed a vacation.
"This isn't a joke, Morgan," he said. "Your legs could get frostbite and be seriously damaged. You could even die."
"Gee, thanks f-for the p-pep talk. You think I h-haven't thought of that? I'm u-up to my waist in ice and w-worried about a lot more than j-just my legs."
His cheeks turned pink.
Trevor reached out and took my hands. "Let's try something," he said. "Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and focus on the Fire."
Like I hadn't done that at least a dozen times since I called him. I scowled, but did as he said. I didn't see how him holding my hands could help, but I went ahead and gave it a try. As I focused I could almost feel the energy Trevor was pouring down through my hands. The Fire inside me stirred sluggishly. I pulled at it harder, willing it to do something to get me out of this situation. It didn't. Instead, it seemed to curl up like a cat preparing to go back to sleep.
"Focus, Morgan," Trevor ordered. "The Fire must obey you. It is yours to command. Make it obey you."
That was easier said than done, but I took the energy Trevor was pouring into me and reached down inside me. I grabbed the Fire around its virtual throat and practically yanked it out of me. In a rush, it came roaring out, screaming in anger as it went. Trevor scrambled back out of the way. The Fire wouldn't harm me, but it could burn Trevor to a crisp.
The Fire lapped hungrily at the ice, irritated the frozen water didn't burn. I tossed the shower curtain away before it could melt and crossed my arms over my chest. I was less worried about being naked and more worried about being cold. Slowly the ice began to steam, then melt, and finally turned back into a pool of water. As soon as my legs were free, Trevor yanked me from the tub. I collapsed on top the shower curtain, naked ass in the air, shivering. The Fire continued to dance along my skin, warming me from the inside out. Luckily it didn't seem to affect the shower curtain for all that it was made of plastic. I guessed it must be one of those fire retardant materials. Three cheers for OSHA.
Trevor handed me a big fluffy towel to wrap myself in, then sat next to me on the tile. He stared at me for a full minute. "Let me guess," he said. "You're channeling Water now."
"That would be a big fat yes."
"Since when?"
I shrugged. "Not sure, but there's been some weird shit going on since the cruise ship. I think maybe it got activated being on the water." Or more likely, being near Eddie, although I'd been around him for months without a problem. Why now? Maybe it was Eddie being near the water and me being near Eddie… I shook my head. "The ice thing is new. Well, newish." I told him about killing the vampires on the island with icicles.
"I think it's time you took a trip to see Tommy," he said. His tone brooked no argument. I couldn't blame him. He'd just seen his sister frozen solid. I'd probably get all bossy and stuff, too.
"Oh, I plan to," I agreed. "It's just that we have more important things to deal with right now."
"What's more important than you controlling your powers? What's more important than your life?"
"Oh, I don't know," I said testily. "Saving the world maybe?"
"How are you going to save the world if you're dead?"
He had a point. I needed to get these powers under control before they destroyed me and everyone around me. But I also needed to stop Alister. "Fine. But who's going after Alister? He could be anywhere. We must find him."
"We will," he said. "I'll make sure of it. You go get your shit together."
Trust your brother to tell you how it is.
# # #
"It's about time you got here."
I grinned as I slammed the trunk of my vintage Mustang shut. Tommy Wahenaka had a way with words.
Tommy was a shaman for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. He'd befriended my father, or rather, my father's ghost. And he'd watched over Trevor while he was growing up. Now he was my Yoda. Only I'm pretty sure Yoda was more talkative and less bossy.
"You've been waiting for me, then?" It was a question I didn't really need to ask.
Tommy snorted. "Trouble follows you like flies follow horse pucky, kiddo," he said, leaning casually on his hand-carved walking stick. He was dressed from top to bottom in faded denim topped with a battered cowboy hat and a pair of scuffed boots badly in need of new soles. A long iron-colored braid hung down his back, and you could have made a road map out of the lines on his face. But his eyes…his eyes were beautiful, ageless, full of the mysteries of the universe. "It was only a matter of time."
"Gee. Your faith in me is overwhelming."
He didn't bother responding. Instead he took my bag and carried it into the cabin. I followed behind more slowly, taking in the view. Things hadn't changed much in Tommy's world. The cabin was still its rickety, rustic self. The land around was still the same juniper- and sagebrush-studded dustbowl. The sky above was still so blue it hurt my eyes, and the wind stirred up little dust devils that danced across the potholed drive. It took a rugged kind of person to make to make it in this desolate landscape. Tommy was just the man for the job.
He put me in the same be
droom I'd had on my last visit. It wasn't much bigger than a closet, and there was just enough room for a single bed and a tiny cupboard to store my suitcase.
The last time I was here had also been to train after a catastrophic power failure. Made me sound like some kind of machine or something, but the truth was, my powers had a tendency to get away from me. Just when I thought I had them licked, they'd do something crazy, like freezing me in the bathtub or burning a house down. Tommy was the only person I knew who could help me control them. Maybe because he was a shaman, or maybe because of his promise to my father.
Tommy followed me into the room and dumped my suitcase in the corner. "Let's get started."
"Right now?" I'd just been running around the Nevada desert. I was exhausted. Bone tired. The last thing I wanted to do was play with my powers.
"No time like the present."
With a sigh I followed him outside. No sense burning down his cabin, I guessed. I didn't think that would go over too well. I followed Tommy across, well, what I guess would be called a lawn, although that was being generous. It was more like a patch of dry earth speckled with dead grass. It was late spring, so the grass should have been green, but the high desert was having a dry spell. We crunched across the gravel drive and onto the open plains of the high desert. Wonderful. The perfect place to start a brush fire. That was all I needed, my face plastered across the six o'clock news.
"Um, Tommy" I said. "I don't think this is a good idea."
"You afraid you gonna light something on fire?" The thought seemed to amuse him.
"Well, yeah, actually. I do have to tendency to burn things down. The last time, I burned down a whole house."
He mulled that over. "Ain't the Fire that's out of control."
"I beg to differ." I was pretty sure I hadn't hallucinated that house burning down. I mean stranger things had happened, but two other people had been there. So either we'd all lost our minds, or I really had burned something down. I was going with the latter.
"You can beg all you want," Tommy said. "But ain't gonna change facts."
"Are you kidding? I was there, Tommy. I saw with my own eyes. Kabita was there. Haakon. They saw it too."
"Well, sure," Tommy said with a nod. "But they only saw part of it."
"What you mean?"
"Well." He squinted up at the sky, his forehead puckered in thought. "What they didn't see was you channeling Water until you nearly gave yourself hypothermia. Then, and only then, did you start burning things down. Bet that was a sight."
I stared at him for a moment. He was right. I'd worn myself out with the Water before I'd tried channeling Fire. By then I'd been so cold, I could hardly focus, and the Fire took over. I'd been too tired to control it. Too exhausted to focus. "How do you know what happened?"
He snorted, clearly amused by the question. "Ain't lived this long for nothing, girl."
"So, we're going to work on Water, then." Might as well resign myself to my fate.
He looked down at the dry earth and grinned. "Lawn could use some."
No kidding.
# # #
"Tell me about this Haakon fellow."
I paused, spoon halfway to my mouth. "Not much to tell." I shoveled in the stew and chomped blissfully. I wasn't really a stew person, but Tommy's was the stuff of legends. It was the best venison stew I'd ever tasted. It was the only venison stew I'd ever tasted, come to that.
Tommy simply raised an eyebrow as he chewed. I cleared my throat and tugged the rough wool blanket tighter around me. I was still bone-cold from the last two hours of exercises. Tommy could be a brutal taskmaster.
"Fine," I said. "According to Eddie, his name is Haakon Airik Magnussen. Once upon a time he was a Viking." I took another bite and nearly moaned as heat spread through my chilled body.
Tommy's brow went a little higher, but he still didn't say anything. I snagged another biscuit off the plate in the middle of the table. Anything to delay the inevitable. Tommy waited.
I sighed. "He's a Sunwalker. Like Jack."
Tommy made a sound that was halfway between a grunt and a snort. I wasn't sure what it meant, so I ignored him and munched on my biscuit.
"I know what you want me to say," I said finally.
Tommy said nothing, just gave me a look and kept eating. Tommy could say a whole lot without saying anything at all.
"You want me to admit I'm a Sunwalker too." I stabbed viciously at a piece of potato.
"Do I?"
"Everyone else does."
"Do they?"
I gave irritated growl. "Everyone says I'm a Sunwalker," I snapped. "Jack. Darroch."
"Ah, yes. Brent Darroch is exactly the sort of man you should listen to." His sarcasm was not lost on me.
"What about Jack? He wouldn't lie to me."
"No. But he sees what he wishes to see."
"Are you saying I'm not a Sunwalker?" Because if he was, he was just about the first person to say so.
"Didn't say that."
My heart sank. "So, I am one."
"Didn't say that either."
I wanted to scream in frustration. It was a regular state of affairs with Tommy. Seriously, he had the enigma thing down pat. "What am I then?"
"Who do you think you are?" He didn't say it a confrontational way. More like in a vaguely interested way, as if I was some sort of scientific experiment. Okay, that wasn't fair. Tommy wasn't like that. But still, it didn't seem like he was invested in my answer, only curious to see what I would come up with.
"I don't know," I said finally.
"That's the smartest thing I've ever heard you say." He stood up and began clearing the dishes from the table. "Now, let's go practice."
"Again?" Every muscle in my body already ached, my brain was exhausted, and I was only just recovering from the cold. I didn't think I could take much more.
"Sun's not down yet," he said. "Plenty of time left."
I groaned. It would be a miracle if I made it through the day alive.
Chapter Eighteen
Three days went by with no word of Alister. Wherever he was, he was definitely keeping a low profile. In the meantime, Tommy was beating the proverbial shit out of me with his exercise drills. I didn't know that I was getting any better at controlling Water, but I hadn't frozen myself to death again. I supposed that was a good sign.
From dawn until dusk, and even sometimes well into the night, Tommy had me calling my powers. Sometimes he'd have me use one until I'd nearly exhausted it. Sometimes he'd ask me to bounce back and forth between different powers or use two of them together. Other times he had me call them all at once, weaving them together into one powerful weapon. Or at least, that was the goal. I'd yet to succeed even once at that one.
We were about to head out for another session of Beat-up-on-Morgan when my cell phone rang. I breathed a sigh of relief until I saw it was Jack. I'd almost rather face Tommy's endless drills.
"Well, look what the cat dragged in."
There was a pause. "Excuse me?" Jack's tone was stilted. Dude seriously needed to loosen up.
"Never mind," I said. "What's up?"
"I think I might have a lead on Alister."
Finally. "Michigan?"
A moment of silence. "Why Michigan?"
"Jade thought he might be there. He talked about it."
"Pretty sure he is not in Michigan," Jack said. "My sources say he somewhere in—get this—Scotland."
"You have got to be kidding me." All this, and Alister was in Dragon territory? A man who hated dragons with a passion?
"It's odd, right? It was the last place I expected him to be."
Something niggled at my brain. "Jade said something about Alister going to hide the book in the last place anyone would expect it to be. Somewhere totally obvious."
"How is Scotland obvious?" he asked. "That's more like the exact opposite of obvious."
He was right, which was what was so confusing. Obvious would've been back in London. MI8 maybe. Not
in the middle of the land owned by his enemies. The dragons were not going to like Alister in their territory. Drago was going to go batshit when he found out. Which was why he was the last person on the planet I planned on telling.
"You're sure he's there?" I asked.
"As sure as I can be," Jack said. "I'm headed there now. I'll let you know what I find out."
"Okay, keep me posted." I hung up the phone, stared at it a minute, then shoved it back in my pocket.
"I take it you're going to Scotland." Tommy's face was devoid of expression. I couldn't tell if he was pleased, angry, or just didn't care.
"I have to."
"Because of Inigo." Still no expression.
He was right, of course. I wanted to say it was because I was going to save the world, or because I planned to catch Alister. Those things were true. But the truth was, I'd use any excuse to see Inigo again. Even if he didn't want to see me. How pathetic was that?
I didn't say any of that, of course. "I have to go, Tommy."
He nodded. As I walked away I felt his eyes on me all the way to the cabin.
# # #
The irony of Alister choosing Scotland as a hideout did not escape me. I'd never been one to believe in coincidences, and this was far beyond mere coincidence. Alister and his ancestors had done everything they could to eradicate the Dragon race. Alister himself had told me how much he hated them. He wanted one race and one race only on this planet: humans. I'm not even sure I'd pass muster at this point. He was willing to use any means necessary—even supernatural ones—to ensure the supernatural races were wiped out.
What was he doing in Scotland? What did he have planned? Whatever it was, he couldn't possibly be up to any good.
Jack met me at the train station in Edinburgh. I quickly picked him out in the crowd. He stood head and shoulders above the rest, his longish hair kissed by the sun, and his eyes the color of the ocean just before a storm. Men gave him a wide berth. Women ogled him with unconcealed lust. Couldn't say I blamed them. He was one fine specimen of manhood. Unfortunately, he was as messed up in the head as the rest of them.
