by Mia Marshall
Of course, I had an ace up my sleeve, one Eleanor had never met. I had Vivian. Eleanor might as well have a password of “12345” for all the good it was about to do her. Ten minutes on Eleanor’s computer, and we’d control the implants.
Once we controlled the implants, we’d control Eleanor.
Unfortunately, that was still in the future, and Eleanor was in the mood to demonstrate how much power she still possessed. She looked over my shoulder again, eyes on the clock, and the beast grinned.
“How do you think a bunch of predators with no memory of their family, friends, or even being human might behave?” She looked at each of us, dangerously pleased with herself. “Let’s find out.”
Again, the shifts began, and the room rang with the howls and cries of frightened animals. This time, however, she allowed them to stay in their animal forms. Confused, scared, and desperate, the animals scanned the room, their fight or flight impulses reaching a decision. One by one, I saw them decide we were the threats, and those that didn’t turn on each other turned on us, stalking slowly toward our group.
Above me, Mac rose, an enormous, growling bear. Madness was in his eyes.
The slow tension that had filled the room since we entered exploded into manic action as one animal after another began its attack.
Miriam dove for the beaver, struggling to subdue the panicked creature. Beavers might normally be peaceful creatures, but after several days of being Eleanor’s personal lab rat, all bets were off. Miriam was cursing and muttering to herself, but the frustration was due to her unwillingness to hurt the small animal whose sharp teeth kept snapping dangerously close to her skin.
Elsewhere, Carmen reverted to her cat form and bounded after the bobcat. It only took a short chase before her muzzle was wrapped firmly around the neck of the small bobcat, who hissed and spat impotently while she carried him about the room.
Will was having far less luck restoring order. He’d found himself backed into a corner by both the wolverine and the coyote, who seemed to be overlooking their natural impulses to attack each other in the face of far more impressive prey. A quick swipe of his paw would have been enough to eliminate the threat but, like Miriam, he was too aware he was battling confused, innocent children.
All this happened in a matter of seconds, the same time it took for Mac to rip through the restraints tying him to the table and move unsteadily to the ground. The entire time, he emitted noises from deep in his throat. I couldn’t even call them growls. They were suppressed screams, steeped in desperation and uncertainty. He rose on his hind legs, seven feet of well-muscled rage and confusion.
He bellowed, and all movement around me ceased instantly. The beaver stopped fighting, the bobcat stopped squirming, and even the wolverine paused in its attempt to sink teeth into Will’s forearm.
Mac hadn’t even been here twenty-four hours. He couldn’t be as deranged as those that had been here for days. I told myself that, even as I met dark eyes that held no knowledge of his surroundings, of me, or of himself.
The beast I’d glimpsed in his eyes several times, that hint of the animal that shared flesh with the man I knew, that was what stood before me now, unhindered by the human impulses and emotions and logic that normally restrained it.
This was the pure beast, an animal large enough to decimate any threats and, stripped of his memory, Mac saw nothing but threats surrounding him.
He dropped to all four legs and began a lumbering run directly toward me. In my peripheral vision, I could see Will shaking off the smaller animals still pestering him. It didn’t matter. I was less than ten feet from Mac. Will would never reach me before Mac did.
I had mere seconds to make a decision. I consulted my magic, looking for my water, but where I expected to find fear of the enormous creature rushing toward me, I found anger instead. This wasn’t some accident. This had been done to him, cruelly forced on him by that smirking bitch still sitting on the floor, convinced she’d bested us all.
I had access to fire, but that could never be an option. It was Mac, and there was no way on this earth or any other I would set him on fire.
I took the anger and forced it deep inside, refusing to even acknowledge its existence. It wasn’t there. I was calm, so calm. I was a leaf on the fucking wind. For just one moment, I believed that, and in that moment I grabbed every bit of water I could find in the air and flung it directly at Mac, forcing it far enough into his nose and lungs that he’d be forced to stop for a single second. I only needed to buy myself that tiny fraction of time, just long enough for Will to reach us and subdue him.
It worked. It worked perfectly. He stopped mere feet from me, his face damn near comical in its confusion. He coughed several times, clearing the water from his lungs.
And then it all went wrong.
It happened so quickly, and yet I knew that years in the future I’d be able to describe that moment with perfect recall. Mac shook off the water and moved toward me, just a single step. He was close enough that I could see the individual hairs, the way his fur shimmered with so many different shades of brown. Some were darker now, coated with water that continued to drip from his face and chest.
There was noise, so much noise, then the room dropped into absolute silence.
I felt the heavy exhalation of air through Mac’s nostrils, warm on my skin. And then, with no warning, he crumpled to the ground, a single whimper escaping his throat.
It made no sense. I stared at the darkening fur of his chest. I held a small globe of water in one hand, but I hadn’t thrown it. There was no reason for Mac to be growing wetter. Then the water dripped, slowly dripped onto the floor, and I saw that it was red.
There was no thought. There was no planning, no consideration, no doubt. There was only the largest fireball I could conjure in a single heartbeat. I turned on my heel and threw it unerringly toward Carmichael, still standing in the doorway with a gun in his hand.
It flew toward him, too fast for him to grasp the threat and move in time. It was only Sera, standing just behind him, that saved his life. She grabbed the fire and pulled it to her without hesitation, extinguishing it.
Carmichael and Johnson stared at me as if I was a stranger, which I supposed I was. It was almost funny, the blank stares they both turned on me, and I stifled a giggle that sought to escape. Distantly, I knew such a reaction was inappropriate considering the situation, and not one others should witness. They might think I was having problems with my sanity. They’d probably be right.
Simon was the last one through the door, and his sharp eyes instantly took in the scene. He’d shifted with Mac many times, and he immediately recognized his friend, fallen on the floor. He ran to him and knelt at his side, determining the extent of the injury as best he could.
I felt a twinge, a vague sense I should be doing the same thing, that I was needed elsewhere, but such an act would require calm. I never wanted to be calm again.
Instead, I turned to Carmichael, who stared alternately between me and his gun, wearing that same stupefied expression that had covered his face the day I told him elementals existed. He looked like a target.
“I said to only shoot the bad bear!” The words came out in a harsh scream that belied the ridiculous statement. The anger made sense, much more sense than the laughter. I’d felt such pure clarity once before, while I watched my own house burn, and I welcomed its return.
“He was about to attack you!” Carmichael insisted.
“That’s the bad bear,” I shouted, pointing. “Shoot her!”
I turned back to the others, all of whom were staring at me in various degrees of shock. Even Eleanor appeared a bit uncertain. She hadn’t counted on this. I grinned and sent a fireball directly to her. “Still feeling pleased with yourself, Ellie?”
Sera ran toward us and grabbed that fire too. I glared at her, then doubled up my attack, trying to produce more fire than she could control. She was always one step ahead, my half-blooded fire no match for her stronger
blood.
“Aidan.” I stopped, feigning a vast patience I did not feel. “We’ve got this. Mac needs you.”
It took a moment for the words to penetrate. Mac was fine. No, Mac was full of drugs. And then I remembered, the one thing I should never have forgotten. Mac was lying on the ground, his breathing rapid and uneven, while I stood above him, toying with the people who’d done this to him. The rage dissipated instantly, replaced by shame and grief and desperation.
I dropped to my knees, speaking nonsense words I barely heard to a bear who didn’t understand me. I begged him to stay with me. I swore we’d get help. I told him I hadn’t meant to forget about him, any more than he’d meant to forget me. His eyes flickered open, long enough to focus on me. I saw no recognition in their depths, only pain.
Around me, I heard order slowly being reestablished. The animals were separated from each other, and Sera set large rings of fire around each one, just enough to trap them until we could either shift them back or at least drug them into unconsciousness again. I heard her voice, a one-sided conversation, and through my fog I heard the words password and server. Vivian was on the job. We’d have control over the drug implants within the hour. Eleanor had no power, not any longer. We’d won.
It didn’t feel like a victory. Mac was fading before my eyes, his breathing growing shallower by the minute. I heard myself sobbing, but my body was numb, unable to feel itself fall apart. Simon kept pressure on the wound, his neat hands lost amidst the bloodstained fur.
“Is it his heart?” I asked. I’d studied basic human anatomy, but never thought I’d need to know the structure of a bear’s internal organs. It couldn’t be that different, right? The wound was directly in the center of the chest, a bit to the right of where a human heart would be.
He shook his head. “Just to the side.” Mac sighed, a long exhalation, and several seconds passed before he breathed in again. “But it hit something, Aidan. A lung, maybe, or an artery.” He sounded uncertain, speaking words whose meaning he barely knew. Simon was, after all, a theatre major. Science and medicine were hardly his forte.
“I can’t do anything,” he said, confirming my thoughts. “We need to get him to a hospital.”
Sera joined us when she got off the phone. One look told her we didn’t have much time. “We won’t make it.” I felt my own internal organs rearranging, my heart falling heavily toward my stomach. My body was turning to stone. “You’ll have to do it, Ade.”
I stared at her, knowing she was suggesting utter insanity. “I’ve never done anything like this. Not on humans, and definitely not on bears. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ll kill him.”
Sera was quiet, waiting for me to admit what we both knew. If I didn’t help him, he was dead regardless.
“Your mother could do it. Why can’t you?” Simon’s eyes never left Mac’s face.
“She’s full-blooded. And old. And well-trained. And not, you know, prone to loss of control at key moments.” They were all good reasons I wouldn’t be successful, and they weren’t even the full story. Even calm, I could feel the fire dancing within me. No matter how I might wish to pretend, I wasn’t pure water, and my body was done pretending it was. If the fire interfered at any point in the process, if it interrupted the water magic, Mac would die at my hands.
Even as I protested, I knew those reasons didn’t matter. It was Mac’s only chance, and I would take it.
“If I kill him...” I began. I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. Don’t let me go insane? Don’t despise me? Don’t keep me from joining him?
“No way.” Sera answered just the second question, a tiny, forced smile making its way to her face. “We’ll blame Carmichael.”
My eyes went to the agent, hovering nervously in the concerned circle that had formed around Mac’s prone body. He looked horrified, and I didn’t care. “Get him out of here.” Steel hardened my voice.
No one moved. “You heard her,” Sera insisted, eyes black and flat.
Johnson lightly grabbed Carmichael’s upper arm, moving him toward the door. I didn’t watch them leave, but before they made it more than a foot, Simon stopped them. “I strongly recommend you submit no reports to your superiors until Sera or Aidan have approved them.” He let his claws elongate, the threat obvious. A moment later, he relaxed, and I knew they had silently acquiesced.
Mac’s eyes fluttered open, moving over each face now gathered around him. Miriam was supervising the children, making sure no one caught fire from their cages, but everyone else was there. His eyes roamed over Will, Carmen, Simon, and Sera, and the expression did not vary from face to face. Everyone was unfamiliar. I received the same questioning look as everyone else, and it broke my heart into tiny pieces. He’d said he would always know me, and it seemed I’d believed him.
But after he looked at everyone else, his eyes returned to me and stayed there, and I knew I would do whatever it took to keep him alive.
I pressed my lips to his forehead and spoke quiet words just for him, using the name he’d whispered in my ear the night we kissed. “Go to sleep, Connor. Close your eyes and let me fix you.” I sent a desperate plea to the fire to remain quiescent, and then I reached my magic deep inside Mac’s body just as he breathed his final breath. At the moment my magic grasped his life source, it was extinguished, and he died.
CHAPTER 24
I heard sobbing, but this time it wasn’t me. It was Will, his deep voice accompanied by Celeste’s gentle cries. During all the chaos, I hadn’t noticed her waking up. She stood apart from our group, knowing she wouldn’t be welcome, but she still wept as her nephew died before her.
I stared at her, at her pathetic snivels. “Don’t you dare. You don’t get to grieve. You started this. You do not get to cry for this man.” She blanched under my stare, and I knew my eyes were gunmetal grey daggers. Her fear wasn’t enough, and I felt little satisfaction. I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to hurt Eleanor, still tied to the bed, truly beaten this time.
The fire leapt at the chance.
It wasn’t alone this time. For the first time ever, the fire didn’t extinguish the water through the force of my anger. I’d worked too hard to secure my water side, to keep Mac safe no matter what treacherous emotions flowed through me, and this time it refused to be consumed by the fire. Instead, the fire swirled around my water half. The two magics joined together, and at last I understood what it was to be a dual magic. I wasn’t one or the other, some fractured and broken elemental.
I was both, and this time, when the fire sang to me, madness did not beckon. I felt complete, and a pure, certain knowledge filled me. It was familiar and sure, a knowledge that had lived within me my entire life, so much that I wondered how I’d never heard it before. It spoke to me of absolute truths, of the purest magic of life and creation that existed at the dawn of time, and I knew exactly what I needed to do.
I’d helped my mother with enough healing to know the basics. You fed the magic in slowly, letting it attach to the body’s water supply. You asked the water to find the impurities and invaders, to tell you of any irregularities it encountered, and you attempted to separate them from the body. You could use the water to move blood through the body, to inflate the lungs and urge the heart to beat. It was slow, detail-oriented work, and a single mistake would cost a life. It would require the utmost concentration and patience to bring Mac back from death.
I had the concentration but not the patience. Mac wasn’t breathing, and I had no time to spare. I grabbed the fire, so active and demanding, and let it propel the magic through my body, through my fingers, and into Mac’s pores. It reached deep within his body, into the bear that lay dead before me. It was indiscriminate, and it looked for any place to land.
What I sent into his body wasn’t water magic, and it wasn’t fire magic. It was the core of both, the pure magic of creation the first elementals were born from, the heart of the magic that lived within each of us. It was the magic of life. And the full-blooded ones,
like me, we had a whole lot of it. It was the magical core that kept us alive through disastrous car crashes, that kept us from aging through the years, that kept us connected to the earth and water, the glaciers and volcanoes, the beaches and deserts. It was our very essence, and with the fire magic as propellant, I sent it rushing to Mac’s bullet wound. Long-lived might not be the same as immortal, but this time it would be. I’d make sure of it.
It only took seconds. His body expelled the bullet and the flesh knit together, the wound closing instantly. I felt the internal organs repairing themselves, and with one insistent beat, his heart exploded back to life, eagerly pushing the blood throughout his body, carrying the magic to every inch of his body, repairing every damaged cell.
It wasn’t enough. He was alive, but he wasn’t yet Mac. I sent the magic exploring, consciously looking for the implants. They were hidden above the massive muscles of his forelegs, and the magic wrapped around them and filled them anew, devouring the unwanted drug. It turned out anti-magic medicine had its limits, and being confronted by the purest magic in the world was one of them. As I watched, Mac’s fur slowly receded, his teeth shrank, his muscles reformed, and the man returned, his breathing weak but steady.
There was more to be done. The magic was eager to finish the job, but my absolute certainty in my task was wavering. I had no idea what such power would do when it touched his neural pathways, and though I desperately wanted Mac’s memory to return, the risk was too great. He was alive. That had to be enough.
Reluctantly, I withdrew the magic, but it resisted, my own magic treating me like a stranger.
I’d asked it to do something unknown, maybe even unnatural, and it wouldn’t return smoothly. It fought me at first, wanting to linger in the new warm body it had just discovered. At last, with great effort, one thread at a time slid back to me, back to my core, and it recognized its home. It called to the rest, and it all returned with increasing eagerness, fire and water, the very magic of life filling me up again, defining me.
