Elemental Soul (The Eldritch Files Book 5)

by Phaedra Weldon

  "Oh, that's not true." I smiled. Sweetly. It was an odd feeling, not being afraid of him. Knowing that I now had the power to stop him. That the disasters and despair he engineered had actually led me to where I needed to be to finally stop him.

  "You haven't answered my question."

  "Why should I? So you can know where you failed? Where you miscalculated your own godhood?"

  I could feel his hate radiating from him. But it wasn't just hate toward me, but toward everyone and everything. I swear this guy had mommy issues.

  "I'm here because a Witch saw what was to come in a vision. And that Witch risked her life several times to make sure that vision never came true. Bits and pieces of what you were doing started to become apparent, especially after I learned who you were, and who you weren't."

  "There's no way you could know what I really wanted."

  "You wanted a true Titan. You hate the fact you were born a lesser being. You hate the fact you're not the special snowflake, Dionysus. Your manipulation of my life wasn't a plan—it was an after thought. A short adventure until you could figure out how to free your soul from Inamorata's shell. And once you accomplished that—you discovered what Crwys was. Somewhere along the line, you figured out he was a Titan. An original. What greater power is there? A Dragon! So when you made the decision to take Crwys's body, the future shifted and Arden saw it."

  "Arden Vervain…she's the Seer?"

  "Don't be so surprised. She's damn good at her job. More than I ever gave her credit for. You lied, you manipulated and you worked within your infamous Machiavellian machinations to test the theory of Crwys's identity. You tested his weakness by making sure Brendi tortured him. And then you decided that the easiest way to get to him was to go through me." I smiled. "But what you didn't count on was your own essence betraying you."

  "He lifted his head and tried to stare down his nose at me. Wasn't happening. So he just snarled. "But how did you survive Vas's embrace?"

  "Tzariene. And Bastien's animus." I held up my hand. "Never trust a Faerie queen, Dionysus. You, of all people, should know this since one of them fused your soul to a mortal body once. I mean, come on. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice—"

  "Silence!"

  I took a single step toward him and smiled. "This is my body, Dionysus. Time for you to go."

  "You know I can't do that without a host nearby."

  "And do you have one ready for you? Cromwell perhaps? He is your Ghoul, isn't he? Not just your puppet?"

  His eyes widened. "How did you know? I kept that Ghoul's existence a secret."

  "Secrets have a way of getting out." I thought of my own secrets. Arwen's death. Fred's death. Not to mention my dad, Pauline and the nurse. When would these secrets of mine be exposed and what punishments awaited me? But I couldn't really worry about that now. Not until I'd put this old enemy to its final resting place.

  It was always those pensive moments that left me vulnerable. Dionysus saw his opportunity and came at me, changing into a bull with two sharp horns and a ring in his nose. My Elementals charged after him, but not before one of those horns pierced my side. I felt it, both within my soul and my body, which was both good and bad. Good because it meant I had control of my physical body again, I was reconnected. But bad because it meant Dionysus was still a threat.

  Spinning out of the way, I grabbed my side and felt hot blood before I looked down to see the damage. My Gnome and Salamander attacked him in the corner of the garage just before the setting changed to the large, empty warehouse where Crwys had lived. It was just as I remembered it from that day with Kyle. Except for me, and a bull stomping the ground in front of a lady Gnome and an oversized Salamander.

  The Salamander set the bull's ears on fire and it roared. That's when the Gnome ran at it, slid in on her backside, and hacked at the bull's front legs. One of them broke off in an arterial spurt of blood and flying bone.

  I smoothed away Dionysus's wound to my side with my hand, using Spirit to heal and mend the flesh. I felt the hum of the Elementals as I summoned their collective power and became whole again.

  But so did Dionysus. His leg grew back, as did his ears, and he charged at my Gnome. She disappeared as I summoned her to me. My Salamander also vanished before he could do any damage to him.

  "You see we are evenly matched!" Dionysus said. "You can fight me all you want, but I am a Leviathan! And I have tasted the Dragon's blood!"

  "So have I." I made a face. "Wasn't all that and a bag of chips."

  "You can't force me out, Samantha. I'll leave when I have the Drachen's body."

  "Well, that's just not going to happen. You see…" I clasped my hands behind me as the clacking noise made by my boots echoed in the warehouse rafters. "You snuck a little piece of yourself into me, didn't you? Back when you attacked me in Ina's kitchen after I'd killed Arwen."

  Oh, he looked proud of himself. Or as proud as a bull could look.

  I continued my slow approach as I summoned my Undine and my Sylph to me as well. "I'm assuming your original idea had been to plant that seed so it would infect the Arcane. Give it life and manipulate it so that when you had your chance to take my body—which you knew you could take because you never taught me Spirit—you could use it to take Crwys's body."

  "You're not as stupid as I thought you were."

  "Oh, I was stupid. And trusting. And just a little naive. But I've grown since then, Dionysus. Because you did teach me something very, very important. That knowledge is power. Well, I learned something from reading the Malleus Maleficarum. That Arcane is sentient at a base level. You gave it consciousness inside of me. And low and behold, it took on a life. It surpassed you." I grinned at the odd look on the bull's face. "And it didn't like you much. So it repurposed itself with me. Worked with my Elementals, not against them. And it decided there was one thing more important than me that needed protecting." I stopped several yards from him. Just me and a bull in a warehouse. "It decided Crwys had to be protected."

  It took a little longer for what I was implying to dawn on Dionysus. But when it did, that confused look became a priceless caricature of shock. "No!"

  "Yes!" I clapped. "It paid attention, Dio! And it figured out that if it hid inside of the Drachen it could prevent you from entering. You've tried to switch bodies, haven't you? Tried to use the athame and magic from the Hammer to drive Crwys out?" I nodded and crossed my arms over my chest. "Failed didn't you?" I shook my head. "You can't have him, Dionysus."

  "You're so very wrong, Samantha. I can have whatever I want. There is no magic smarter than me, and Arcane isn't sentient."

  "It is."

  I watched him posture, his mind contemplating his next move, and I anticipated it. And I was right. Because if there was one thing I'd noticed about Ina all those years of living with her with Dionysus inside? She was a creature of habit. Which meant so was he.

  He bellowed. He pawed the ground. And then he charged.

  My transformation began before he left his place and came after me with enhanced speed born of his Spirit's desire to survive. My transformation was completed seconds before I lowered my head and pierced his head with my horn, the sharp spike centered between his eyes.

  We remained locked like that for a few seconds, though it could have been hours or days, before the first wisps of gold dust appeared. It ate at the edges of his creation. Bite by bite. Until the bull vanished in an explosion of sparkling yellow, and light filled the warehouse.

  TWENTY EIGHT

  SAMANTHA

  When I woke I coughed and batted away all kinds of hands touching me. I didn't want to be touched!

  "Is it her, Ivan? Just her?" Kyle said.

  "Yeah. It's just Sam. There's nothing else there."

  I recognized Ivan's voice and blinked up at him. "You cut your hair."

  "Yeah."

  "Looks good." Then my gaze shifted to Dharma, then Bastien. Sweet, sweet Bastien. I reached out to him and he pushed everyone out of his way to
pull me to him. We were still in the safe room in a pile of pulverized bricks. I squeezed him as tightly as I could, appreciating all he'd done and all he'd nearly sacrificed just to see me safe and alive.

  When I pulled back from him, his eyes were red rimmed and I touched his face. "What's wrong?"

  "I will lose you now, chérie," he said in a low voice. I could see his sharp fangs just past his lips. He was still partially wolf and a bit hairy, but I didn't care.

  "You haven't lost me."

  "Oui. You must make your Dragon better."

  Crwys!

  I smiled at Bastien but turned in his arms to see Arden kneeling over my Dragon. He was propped up against the far wall, blood covering his chest and stomach. But he was watching me. Watching me with Bastien.

  I scrambled away from the wolf and picked my way to Crwys. I felt the pull of the Arcane as it longed to be home with me, and I heard the cheers of my Elementals as I motioned Arden back, took his face in my hands, and pressed a kiss against his lips. He tasted of salt and copper and all things fire.

  The Arcane nearly leapt back inside, and it knocked me back. Luckily, what remained of the wall stopped my flight and I sat back against it, a mirror image of Crwys. I grabbed the top of my t-shirt and pulled it to down to look.

  The scar was still healing, fast, cooling as the flesh mended until the only thing that remained was the original iridescent mark I'd had after I'd made my dad's house disappear.

  "That was what was wrong with him?" Levi said as he picked his way over the bricks and settled next to his partner. "You put your Arcane into him?"

  "Not me. It did. I don't remember how or when, but it knew the only way to stop Dionysus from taking him was to interfere." I rubbed at my chest before I locked my eyes with Crwys's. "You feel better?"

  "Oh yeah. The headache's gone. I feel peachy."

  I laughed as I started to sit up. "Then let me heal you real quick before we go upstairs and take a shower."

  "No, no," Levi appeared at the door and picked his way through. "Let me. My blood can heal him pretty fast, and there's no chance of him ever becoming a Ghoul." He shrugged.

  "Sure," I said as I sat back again and looked at Arden as Levi bit into his wrist and sat next to his old friend so he could drink. "Speaking of Ghouls—"

  "Yeah." Arden nodded. "This isn't going to be easy for him." I knew she meant Cromwell. He was a Ghoul, and Ghouls were fed the blood of their makers to survive. Without Dionysus's blood, or essence, the Grand High Master was going to go through some serious withdrawals that he may or may not survive. "What are you going to do?"

  "Talk to Cosgrove. He passed Ivan's possession test and he'd be a good replacement once the Parliament is made aware of Cromwell's condition."

  "Yeah," I watched Crwys feeding when I realized everyone else had gone upstairs. "Now it makes sense why he was so insistent he take over my teaching of Spirit."

  "He wanted to keep you weak."

  "Mhmm. And why he pushed for me to be part of the escort of Blackwood." I sighed as my gaze fixed on Levi's face, on his closed eyes. And then something changed as I watched and I could see colors surrounding him. Those colors came from a single ball of eternal fire around his chest, and the harder I looked at it, the more detailed it became—

  I gasped when I saw Ashur's true form.

  "Babe?"

  I blinked when I saw Crwys in front of me. His amber red eyes were fixed on me and filled with worry. I pulled at the edge of his collar and wiped blood from his lips. "I'm not kissing that mouth again until you brush your teeth."

  He laughed as he pulled me into his arms. Eventually, Arden and Levi excused themselves and left. I watched Levi as he paused at the door and looked back. I caught the color of black eyes and the sad look on his face before he stepped away.

  And I had to wonder if Crwys knew the truth of what I'd seen.

  That Ashur was a female.

  TWENTY NINE

  SAMANTHA

  In hindsight it all seemed so anticlimactic to me. Dionysus's death. I guess I thought he'd go in a bloody spray of arterial fluid and explode like some Michael Bay movie.

  Again, Crwys paid for repairs to the shop, and his Mustang. I felt sooo bad about the car. I mean, he knew I wasn't the one to smash it, but still…

  Cromwell disappeared when Martin Cosgrove took over as Grand High Master. I didn't know if his absence was forced or if he'd vanished on his own.

  Arden's face healed in record time and I apologized. She let me know pretty fast I had one freebie and if I hit her again, there would be retaliation, and hair pulling.

  I trained with Arden, not so much on mastering Spirit because I had that down now, but on directing a Hive. I'd been promoted to Hive Leader, and once I got the go-ahead, I'd be setting up my own team.

  I said I'd give them a year. And after a year, they could all go screw themselves.

  We were all invited out to Gypsy Gardens for Beltane. I let Arden buy me a white dress that made Crwys's head snap a few times and even succumbed to Dharma's flower crown. The only thing I really liked about May first was I could go barefoot.

  No boots! And of course she had to do my toenails in pink polish. Ick.

  In the month and a half since it all happened, I'd talked with Ivan and Dharma about their adventure and why Ivan had been in such bad shape. He'd been the one to sense something off about Cromwell and told Arden. After the first attempt on his life by the unknown blond man, she had them moved, along with Pyewacket, to Gypsy Gardens.

  Apparently, Ivan and his girlfriend were given the option to do some special assignments for some group called The Eldritch, which they weren't supposed to tell me and did anyway. This group thought they were good as a team. I personally didn't see it. I mean, he was electricity in a base way and she was water. Sort of a discordant pairing if you asked me.

  But then, if I looked at us the right way, Crwys and I were a Dragon and a Unicorn. How messed up was that?

  Speaking of Crwys, he introduced Kyle to a friend of his, some magic dude that promised to train the Hedge Witch in something called Southern Conjure. Sounded fine to me. The more powerful my peeps the better.

  Arden and I had a long talk that afternoon as the kids of the coven members wove a maypole out in the backyard near the Circle area. We were in her sitting room upstairs near her bedroom sharing tea and talking.

  "You know," I said as I dumped a ton of sugar into my cup. "You're not as dumb southern as you pretend to be."

  "No, shugah. I'm probably the smartest Witch you'll ever know, excluding your mother."

  I looked out the window and saw Grey with the kids, chasing them, and rolling with them in the grass. "No one's as smart as my mother."

  "Oh, I think her daughter's pretty smart."

  "Arden, thank you for what you did. I'm sorry I blamed you—"

  "Sam," she sat forward. She was clothed in a gown similar to my own, but on her, it looked sexy. "I never intended for that man of yours to come to any harm. He needs to stay happy and healthy."

  "So he won't torch the world."

  She winked. "That too." When her expression became serious, I took notice. "Sam…I need you to listen carefully to me."

  "Okay?"

  "The Parliament, for all their good works, is made up of humans. And humans are fallible and prone to selfish tendencies."

  I had to agree with her on that, but there was something in her tone that worried me. "What are you trying to say?"

  "Always trust your heart. Listen to what they say, follow the rules for a year and then make them forget you. But if they ever tell you to do something you can't justify in your heart," she lowered her voice. "Don't do it. Walk away. You have that right."

  The whole conversation seemed a little strange to me, especially coming from Arden Vervain, but I was beginning to think there were a lot more layers to this woman than I first thought.

  She looked out the window. "Oh, Crwys is over in the gazebo looking lonely. Why don'
t you go out there and keep him company? I'm sure Cosgrove and his retinue will be here soon. He's excited to meet the Drachen." We stood, and to my surprise, she hugged me tight.

  I returned the hug and it felt…good.

  "I am sorry, Sam. I just can't say it enough." She was gone in a whirlwind of white linen and the scent of jasmine.

  I grabbed my sandals and headed out to the gazebo. Crwys looked good. Damn good in his white shirt and soft worn jeans. He was barefoot as well. He grinned as I bounded into the gazebo and he took me in his arms. He'd given me space after I destroyed Dionysus, not because I'd asked him, but because he sensed I needed it. He was awesome like that.

  "So, any good word from Arden?" he said as he leaned on the railing and pulled me to him.

  "Not a lot. Parliament's happy because they have their Arcane wielder. Seems that's a big deal. Other than that, she just can't stop apologizing." I ran my fingers through the shock of hair that fell over his eye. "You're not still mad at her are you?"

  "No. I mean I have the whole story. And I get it. But can I ask that we not have anymore dealings with Faeries for a while?"

  "I can hold that off for maybe a few months. But Brendi's already contacted me. She wants to go home."

  "And she needs you, why?"

  "Her dad. She's nervous, but I'm sure once we tell Mike he'll be ecstatic." I pressed a kiss to his lips. "And how about you? Are you okay?"

  "I'm great…" he paused. "Well…"

  "What?"

  "It's nothing."

  "Don't do that. Tell me."

  "No, you'll just say no."

  I poked him and he laughed. Crwys the Dragon was damn ticklish. "Tell me!"

  He fixed me with his amber gold eyes and smirked. "I feel like there's something missing. Something I started and you have to complete."

  Ah…I already knew. "The bond. Well, I told you last week, you're going to have to tell me how to do that 'cause I don't know Drachen customs."