Dark Waters (Elemental Book 1)

by Rain Oxford

  Except Darwin didn’t need any help. He was having a grand-old time tearing the stuffing out of the alpha wolf. Sure the wolf was clawing Darwin’s chest into ground beef, but my roommate didn’t seem to care. He attacked like a wolf himself; biting, clawing, growling, and snarling. Fortunately for him, his human form was to his advantage.

  With my left hand, I tore my right sleeve, wrapped the cloth around my hand, and pressed it to my shoulder. I sat up carefully, knowing full well I was only able to manage because of the adrenaline.

  I felt his approach. As Henry prowled closer to me, his mind was barely recognizable. He stalked me in a wide circle, going back and forth as if I was a prey animal that could flee. This wasn’t entertainment for him; it was his nature. I could feel him, but not see him. Even when I felt his hot breath blow across my hand and the gaping wound in my shoulder, I couldn’t see him. He wasn’t just a jaguar shifter.

  Henry was an invisible jaguar shifter.

  Nobody gets into this school because they’re normal. I reached out and felt the thick fur of his neck. He let me, patiently for a moment, before he moved closer for the kill. I tried to wrap my power around his mind, but it was like there was a wall around it.

  Instead, I reached inside of me and pulled up the image of my parents on the floor. Even knowing my mother was still alive and the man who was torn apart wasn’t really my father, it was enough to fill me with anger. As heat burst inside me, I turned that anger on my friend.

  It wasn’t fire that burst from me and struck my invisible opponent but something close enough. It was energy, raw power that flowed like fire and was… blue. I had enough time to realize where I had seen it before, before Henry shifted back into his person form and the fire died.

  I found with horror that Flagstone had also shifted. Darwin was lying on the ground beside the professor, convulsing and clinching his teeth in pain. Clumsily and on my knees, I made it to Darwin’s side. There were splits in his skin all over his body; not cuts from his fight but unnatural wounds from a curse. Even as he lay without touching anyone, another wound formed on his left cheek. His hair was slowly returning to normal.

  “What do I do?” I asked. “How do I help you?”

  He said something with his teeth clinched, but it was half cry and I couldn’t make it out. I saw the blood red of his irises and the black of his pupils change to silver before he closed his eyes in pain. He was bleeding out of his nose and mouth.

  “You can heal him, right?” Henry asked expectantly. “Wizards can heal people.”

  There was no time to demand an explanation or even worry about my shoulder. “I need water, some gauze, antiseptic… something blue and a candle or water-scented incense. Henry, there’s a potion bottle on my desk.”

  “Something blue?” Henry asked as Flagstone shifted and ran to the castle. He got the idea and took off for the dorms.

  I patted Darwin’s arm, touching only his hoodie, in offer of comfort. A few seconds later, Flagstone was back with a plastic sack of water, two candles, and some gauze.

  “I couldn’t find anything blue. He was fine until I shifted back and then he started bleeding.”

  I wet the gauze and put them on his chest. I knew that was weird; I could feel Flagstone’s stare on me. Remembering what Remy said about balance, I set the two thick candles on either side of him and didn’t light them.

  I focused on the morning when I told my roommates who I was and why I came to Quintessence. Trust hadn’t come easy for me, yet I knew I made the right decision. Darwin acted like a goofball most of the time, but he was the first to spring to my defense. I wanted to heal him. I will heal him.

  Henry returned with the healing potion and some more gauze. I wet the bandages with the mint green potion and wiped Darwin’s face gently with it.

  I imagined the cuts closing, only to realize it wasn’t enough. Cautiously, I opened my mind to his like I had before. The pain was instantaneous. Every nerve ending lit up with agony until I couldn’t breathe let alone think. This was his pain, which I had to push passed to heal him.

  I thought of his mother and was instantly presented with a mental picture of her. Then I focused on my own mother and remembered the feel of her hugging me, only I imagined it as Darwin’s mother hugging him while I held onto that feeling. He calmed his mind enough for me to search it. His mind was organized and efficient even if I couldn’t understand much of it.

  Finally, I felt that fear that had been passed down to him in the form of magic. It was absolute hopelessness; a willingness to die just to escape reality. Darwin’s mother had felt more fear than her mind could handle and that melded with her power, which passed to Darwin. It was her means of protection; live free or die.

  I wasn’t going to let him die.

  I wrapped my power around that fear and pushed the sensation of being hugged, kissed… and loved. I was loved by my mother and I was loved by Astrid. I think even Regina loved me in her selfish, unusual way. Fear relented to love, trust, and comfort like fire to… water.

  I understood. Fire and water were opposites, but both were necessary in life. What saved Darwin’s mother’s mind and heart was killing Darwin. Fire was a powerful element that could clear away the dead and rotted to make room for new life, but water had to be there as well. Although earth and air were just as important, water was the element Darwin needed then. Fae and shifters needed the power of the elements just as much as wizards.

  Darwin was no longer yelling in pain and the wounds on his face and neck started to close. I continued forcing the sense of belonging, trust, and comfort into him until I realized the pain was gone. It was a sudden realization that left me shaking and cold with its absence. Adrenaline stopped surging through me and the world spun as I closed my mind to him.

  Henry kept me from falling back with a firm hand on my uninjured shoulder. “What happened?” he asked. “Who attacked you and Darwin?”

  “Flagstone and you!” Darwin panted. He peeled the gauze off his chest and used it to wipe the remaining blood off his face and neck. His light blue hoodie, torn and blood soaked, was ruined.

  Henry looked startled. “I… I was in sitting in one of the dungeon cells one minute, and then I was here. I remember nothing between.”

  “I was following John, and the next thing I knew, Darwin was clawing at my throat,” Flagstone said. “I shifted and that was when he started bleeding and screaming. I hope you have a better explanation than I do, Devon, or Logan will kill me for attacking a student.”

  “He should!” Darwin barked. “You tried to tear Devon’s throat out!”

  “The spiders.” They all turned to me. “I need to see into your mind.”

  Henry shuddered and backed away, but Flagstone merely looked unsure. “Is it dangerous?” he asked.

  “Only if I want to hurt you.”

  “I apparently just tried to kill you. A shifter would call that a justified motive.”

  “Then you owe me.” Without waiting for him to say anything else, I reached my power out to his mind. It was easy, even natural, to take over. The wolf in him was startled at the invasion, but he knew I didn’t want to hurt him. He could tell I was powerful and didn’t want to incite my anger. Flagstone was confused at his wolf’s reaction. Although he was more hesitant, he couldn’t stop me.

  Rosin Flagstone was an alpha before anything else. He was dominant with every drop of his blood and very much like the wolf he became. Rosin had to control every aspect of his life and the people in it. Everyone who didn’t submit, no matter if they were shifter or not, was challenging him. The fact was he hated wizards.

  Yet Logan Hunt was his best friend.

  The magic that wizards produced was unpredictable to him and his wolf, and he hated the chaos of it. All his life wizards treated him like an animal, which only made his wolf more determined. Hunt was the exception only because they became friends as children. There was a history there, but I felt his mind struggle against me when I tried to see it. I di
dn’t want to invade his privacy, so I relented.

  I started by pulling up his memory of tracking John Cross. The scene was dark and foggy. I saw John from the cover of the dark forest as the wizard got in the back of a black limo. Flagstone followed the limo out of the council driveway and onto the road. It was easy to follow, since the road was lined with forest and there were no other cars in sight.

  After about ten minutes, the car slowed to a stop in the middle of the road. Flagstone ducked down under the brush of a fallen tree and peered through the leaves. John stood in the street, glanced around for a moment, and held out his hand. A flash of light caused Flagstone to flinch. When he looked up, the road was crawling with spiders.

  John looked right at Flagstone and I felt a dark presence cloud the shifter’s mind. From then until he woke up fighting Darwin, his mind was shrouded in a blank, malevolent fog. The wolf snarled and snapped, realizing he had been controlled. This was enough to throw me out of the vision and back into myself.

  Flagstone was panting with exhaustion and frustration as he reached for my shoulder. I remembered my own pain then and my head swam. He put pressure on it to stop the bleeding, but it was all I could do not to push him away.

  “Devon, I did not mean to hurt you,” Henry said.

  “I know.”

  “I remember nothing since being locked up in the cell.”

  “I know. This wasn’t your fault.”

  “How is it not his fault?” Darwin asked incredulously.

  “Because this was John Cross’s doing. John Cross took over their minds and made them kill.”

  * * *

  My shoulder was numb, which was fantastic considering the alternative. I opened my eyes to find Nightshade leaning over me, rubbing oil into my shoulder. It took me a second to realize why that bothered me; the oil was on fire.

  And Nightshade’s pupils were diamond-shaped like a reptile’s. She slapped my arm, startling me. “None of that,” she said sharply.

  “None of what?” I wasn’t checking her out. I wasn’t into teenagers.

  “You were trying to see into my mind and see what I am. You could have just asked.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was doing it. What are you?”

  She smiled kindly at me. “Mind your own damn business.” She continued rubbing fire and oil into my shoulder.

  I was in a soft bed, low to the floor and narrower than a twin, which had been brought into Dr. Martin’s lab. Darwin and Henry were each in uncomfortable-looking metal foldout chairs. Darwin’s expression was hopeful, as if I were coming out of a coma, while Henry looked dejected. He had a secret even bigger than Darwin’s.

  Dr. Martin, Hunt, and Flagstone were nowhere to be found. “What happened?”

  “You passed out from blood loss,” Nightshade said. “Rosin has gone into hiding until this mess is cleared up. If the council found out he hurt a student, even under the control of someone else, he would have to join us in the Wizard’s Watch.”

  “What’s that?” Darwin asked.

  “A club we made up for all those on the wizard council’s kill list.”

  “Oh, I want to join!” he said excitedly. Henry scowled at him.

  “I’m going to have to join your club myself,” the jaguar shifter said. “I doubt the council will let me live knowing I’ve killed five people.”

  “You only killed Mrs. Ashcraft. Li Na killed Susan Walker, the first victim. Professor Hans was killed by Cassie. Addison tried to kill Remy, but I stopped her when the cat and I interrupted them in Remy’s office. Then she turned around and killed Megan, I believe. Heather was killed by Jackson, but he was coherent enough to remember some of it.”

  “How did you---”

  “The spiders. Everyone whose mind was invaded by John saw spiders and had nightmares before and after. That must have been what Remy meant when she said his ring was familiar.”

  Darwin stood and scanned the floor as if he would suddenly see spiders. “But you said the victims were poisoned. How could all the different people have the same poison?”

  “The lake. John made someone steal the aconite from Dr. Martin’s lab and poison the lake so that anyone John controlled had access to it. Then, if something went wrong, the poison would be tracked to the water and someone would assume it was an accidental poisoning. That’s also why the ‘fang’ marks were different on each victim; the killers all had different weapons. Actually, that was probably what Dr. Martin’s cat was trying to tell me with Li Na’s hair sticks.”

  “So all of Rebecca’s actions were really just coincidence?” Nightshade asked.

  “Other than her sending a vampire after me? Actually, the vampire was just her opportunistic attempt to get rid of me, because she thought I was investigating her. She was a bad guy, but not the bad guy. She was trying to ally herself with vampires; John wouldn’t let her live. How he found out, I don’t know… unless he was listening in on her confession somehow.”

  “So now we know who is responsible for the murders, why don’t we go get him?” Henry asked.

  “We do not know where he is,” Hunt said, entering the lab. “John would never use his own home to keep Remy in. He probably has many hideouts and numerous traps. We have to be clever about this. John is smart enough to cover his tracks and we cannot take this to the wizard council. Even with hard evidence, they would take another council member’s side.”

  “Who knows how to find John and can protect his mind?”

  “Vincent.”

  “Great. Get him on the phone. Use your iron bowl.”

  “That will be a problem. Vincent is missing.”

  * * *

  There was no doubt that I was dreaming, because under no other circumstances would I be sitting at my coffee table in my apartment playing poker with Remy, Astrid, and Heather. Astrid was fully grown in this dream, but she was wearing the same nightgown she wore when she was a child. Remy and Heather were both wearing the last outfit I saw them in. Heather didn’t have a broken neck or blood, but her blue blouse was open, displaying her black satin bra. Either I had a really inappropriate subconscious, or my mind was trying to figure it out.

  Then, suddenly, her shirt was closed.

  “It’s funny, isn’t it?” Remy asked. “Heather is dead, you want Astrid dead, and I’ll be dead soon if you don’t find me.”

  “There’s nothing funny about that,” I said.

  “No, it’s funny that we’re playing poker. How can Heather play poker with a broken neck?”

  “I don’t even know how to play poker,” Astrid added.

  “My father taught me. My father here, not there.” Heather said.

  I set my cards down. “What is that? What do you mean? Professor Langril said the same kind of thing.”

  “The note in my pocket was supposed to be destroyed. I got detained.”

  “How did you get detained from destroying a tiny piece of paper? You could have burned it or tore it up. What did it say?”

  “What is written cannot be unwritten, and what is said cannot be unsaid. When you are ready to understand, you will find your answer.”

  “Funny,” Remy repeated. “It’s not that often that you learn something in your dream.”

  “I’m learning poker,” Astrid said.

  Heather folded. “I wonder if Logan Hunt can speak Enochian.”

  * * *

  I groaned when I was awoken by a small weight moving on my head. “Go away,” I moaned. I knew even without opening my eyes that I was asleep at my desk. The weight left my head and I sat up. Vincent’s book, which I had fallen asleep on, was open to one of the many pages that detailed the science of magic.

  With my head now up, Adesra, the first undine who I met, sat down on it. Her blue wings fluttered nervously. Henry and Darwin were still asleep in their beds, even though it was well into the day and sunlight streamed through the window. I turned out my gas lamp.

  “You have opened yourself up to the way of the water, Devon Sand
ers. We are pleased. This does not mean that you will never turn to the darker forces of magic, but it does mean you have a chance.”

  “Yeah, I learned to use water, that’s great. Now, what element can I use to find Remy?”

  “The power to find the one you seek is already inside you. Water can help strengthen your bond with her. Allow me to show you what your power can do.”

  A distinct cat’s growl made us both look up. The damn cat was on my bed, peering down at us.

  “Ghost, you coward. How dare you growl at me?” Adesra said. The cat jumped down onto my desk and hissed at her.

  “Do you know this cat? He certainly knows you.”

  “Ghost is angry with me because I refuse to help his master anymore.”

  “Anymore?” Why would Dr. Martin know Adesra? And then I took my first good look at the cat; at his familiar blue eye and the scar down his face. He wasn’t Dr. Martin’s cat.

  “Vincent Knight is not a good man, Devon Sanders. He has used blood magic.” She regarded the book beneath her like gum on a sidewalk. The cat hissed at her again and she glared for a moment before disappearing with a small pop.

  “Wait! How do I find Remy?”

  “I will help you.”

  I turned at the deeper sound of her voice to find her right behind me. Only, she wasn’t six inches tall anymore. She was more beautiful at five-five, which was odd because there was nothing discernibly different about her. Her wings swept the floor lightly as they fluttered, since they had grown proportionally to her.

  “What do I do?”

  “Think of the one you seek. Think of finding her, of her voice, of her smell… I will help you.”

  I closed my eyes and concentrated. I went over every interaction with her, every thought, from the first moment I saw her at the school board meeting. As I did, I also focused on the dark place she was kept in and the feel of the spiders. I have to find her.

  This time, when I sent out my power to reach her mind, I found her immediately. As an undine, Adesra could be anywhere. She was amplifying my power.